Of Freedom and Folly: The Untold Tales of the Freedom Fighters
by cfpepperz
Summary: To what extent does the freedom of one justify the destruction of the other? Follow the Freedom Fighters before, during, and after canon appearances as they struggle with the moral and meaning of their actions in a world marred by war. {Rated T for language, violence, and mild sexual references. Trigger warnings given where appropriate. }
1. 1 The Unexpected

**4/2016 edit: Because my edits are few and far between and I don't want to make you re-read anything, I have added a summary of Chapters 1-10 between Chapters 10 and 11 (that'll help you bypass these awkward chapters a bit better). Hope that helps!**

**TITLE: **Of Freedom and Folly: The Untold Tales of Gaipan's Arboreal Vagabonds

**SUMMARY: **To what extent does the freedom of one justify the destruction of the other? Follow the Freedom Fighters before, during, and after canon appearances as they struggle with the moral and meaning of their actions in a world marred by war. Rated T for language and violence.

**CHAPTER ONE: The Unexpected**

"_Monkey Feathers!"_

Jet kicked away a charred, fallen pillar, pulling away smaller debris with his hook swords as he searched the smoldering ruins of what had probably been a temporary Earth Kingdom settlement just hours before. It was rather small, he had noted: just a handful of peasants scattered along the bank of the Hong Ye River, not more than two leagues from the main settlement at Gaipan, quietly farming the fertile floodplains toward the end of the peak season.

And just as they were settling down to enjoy the labors of their harvest, the Fire Nation Army had gone ahead and made spoils of the good people and their hard-earned wares, consuming what they couldn't store in their greedy bellies in flames. As usual, they'd left nothing but death and destruction in their wake, sparing neither man nor child in their never-ending conquests.

And, as usual, the Freedom Fighters had been too late to aid the innocent.

The mop-headed teen grunted as he pushed out the part of his mind that mocked the futility of his actions; that questioned the worth of it all. It was so tiring, so taxing: taking care of oneself and a few dozen displaced orphans day after day, season after season, cutting down Fire Nation scum even as more always seemed to appear in their place, doing anything; _everything_, to keep his home, his friends, his _children _safe. And as his love for them had grown, so had his hatred of those who threatened their well-being: there was too much to do; too many Fire Nation to expel from the only home he had left; too many deaths unavenged…

Stopping suddenly, Jet pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes smarting from the airborne ash, fingers aching for the metal and leather flask at his hip. No time to cry; no time to gripe; no time to just _stand there_ all day when his Freedom Fighters were picking apart what was left of this razed town under his orders.

He took a swig, eyes snapping shut as the fiery liquid burned down his throat, carrying ash and soot and worries with it. By the second swig the pain had dulled to the point of being bearable and, with a sigh, the Freedom Fighter and his hook swords were back to their futile work, the soft crunching of his feet upon charred debris fading into the wind.

"Those heartless bastards," muttered Sneers, kneeling over a charred corpse in seething contemplation as he finished performing an abbreviated Earth Kingdom burial rite over a fallen civilian. Stomach churning, the monk wiped a gloved hand over the sickeningly small body's eyes, shielding their bloodshot torment from the ash-grey sky.

A massive, but gentle hand on his shoulder announced Pipsqueak's arrival. The behemoth regarded him gravely, his usually jubilant, booming baritone dulled to a quiet rumble.

"Longshot and I pulled up four bodies down by the riverside," he muttered. "No word from Bee yet; she's got the four huts closest to the forest."

"You and Longshot go help her clear debris," Sneers replied, resuming his full height as he mentally prepared himself to face more remains. "I'll take care of the dead."

The gentle giant nodded, turning to face the Freedom Fighters' tall, silent archer as he came over the ridge. With an inclination of the head, the two set off toward the forest, dread bubbling up in their throats as experience and imagination began to formulate the unspoken misery they would likely find there.

Out of all of the huts in the village, those near the forest's edge appeared to have suffered the least damage. The designation, however, was of little consolation: straw and splintered wood littered the earthen floor, while the façade of one dwelling had been peeled away like a skin of a fruit, exposing the still-smoking contents within. Another beside it remained intact, but scorch marks radiating from the entrance betrayed its inhabitants' gristly fates.

Not a moment later Smellerbee had emerged from that very dwelling, her paint-striped face covered in soot. The swordswoman appeared green, and before Pipsqueak could process what she might have seen she had staggered past him, just barely reaching a bush before emptying the entire contents of her stomach. Longshot was at her side in an instant, rubbing her back as she struggled to find her breath again, offering her his canteen as soon as she had gathered her bearings enough to rinse the foul taste from her mouth.

"I'm not done yet," Bee muttered bitterly as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve, accepting the archer's waterskin without meeting his concerned gaze. She took a quick swig, gargled, and spit the contaminated water at her feet in a manner so unladylike that Longshot might have smiled in happier circumstances.

But for now, he had to insist that she take a short breather.

"I don't need a 'breather,' " she snapped at his pointed look, turning to face the hut again, "we owe it to these people to make sure that we don't leave a single stone unturned: if there are any clues as to where the fire Nation's going next, or if there are any survivors—"

Survivors.

Longshot cringed, remembering how the term, while positive in the fact that it meant 'not dead,' had acquired far too many negative, empirical associations to it in his time as a Freedom Fighter. Being a survivor implied that you had been through something thorny enough to pick off something close and dear to you: friends, family, a home, a _voice_—

And then there had been those who had lost an arm, a leg, or just too much blood, and then there was nothing they _could _do but hold hands and whisper assurances that it would all be over soon; to barely keep it together as the innocent were slowly and agonizingly consumed by death.

And whoever _did _manage to escape the jaws of death with little more than their fractured lives and the tattered clothes on their backs:

Well, you got the Freedom Fighters.

Before he or Pipsqueak could stop her, Smellerbee had pushed past Longshot and reentered the dwelling, intent on sifting through every potential clue if it meant she and the rest of the Freedom Fighters were that much closer to preventing another raid. Her stomach would just have to deal with it.

Without bothering to argue the matter further, Longshot ducked under the low threshold after her, hissing as the odor of burnt flesh filled his nose. A quick survey of the dwelling's interior revealed why Bee had gotten ill.

What few personal items that had once decorated the small home had been torn from the walls, or now lay in smoldering, crumpled heaps on the hard earthen floor. The remains of a cracked table, two chairs, and—his stomach turned violently—a _high chair_, lay unceremoniously strewn about, not quite obscuring the—

Two twisted bodies in the far corner of the home, their skin blistered and black, laying face-down in the muck and the filth and —

The tiniest of sounds twitched past his ear.

The perceptive archer had whipped around in an instant, the sharp intake of his breath catching Bee's attention. Their eyes locked momentarily before going to the lifeless heap in the corner, thoughts bouncing between them at the speed of sound—

No. There was no way that it'd still be here, in a condition that wouldn't be etched into his mind for the rest of his life, but before he knew what he was doing he was in the corner, carefully turning over the woman's hunched body—

And there, yes, _there_, in the smooth, miraculously uncharred crook of her arm and breast, was—

"BEE!"

The words had no sooner vibrated through atrophied vocal cords and escaped once-mute lips when his addressee yelped in surprise, and a strangled, gurgling cry bubbled forth from the struggling bundle in the dead woman's arms.

In a second, the swordswoman had dropped her weapon and was now craning over Longshot's hunched figure, not daring to believe what she had heard before she had seen it with her own eyes—

And then suddenly the entire façade had been ripped from its earthen foundations, Pipsqueak's broad silhouette shading his comrades as the late afternoon light as it filtered through the dwelling, his eyes popping as the sights and sounds finally came together in a beautiful, miraculous realization that—

"Great Spirits, there's a BABY in here!"

Pipsqueak's booming declaration all at once turned the deathly silence of the site into a bustling menagerie of sounds, each overlapping the other as the troop of young vagabonds staggered over their discovery in frazzled incredulity: Pipsqueak had done away with his load with a great heave, the crash of splintering wood augmented by the infant's rolling wails and a cacophony of cackling viper-ravens, spooked from their roosts, pooling in a great black cloud far above their heads. Longshot cringed, his perceptive ears ringing painfully from the sudden influx of noise, and it wasn't until Smellerbee tugged at his tunic with slight urgency that he came to his senses.

"'Shot, gimme your cape."

Without delay, the archer fumbled with the knot on the garment in question before handing it to the swordswoman. She'd snatched it pointedly, her eyes never leaving the wailing infant before them, carefully (though with obvious inexperience) wrapping it up in the tattered red material before scooping the child into her arms, bouncing slightly at the knees as she attempted to quell its crying.

By the time Jet and Sneers had appeared over the ridge, Smellerbee had somehow managed to reduce the baby's wailing to whimpering.

"Shhh… s'okay, you're safe now. You're gonna be just fine…"

She nodded as their leader approached them, shooting a venomous glance at Sneers as she sensed him assimilating this veritable goldmine of blackmail material he'd surely pester her with later. The monk closed his mouth, but in his inebriated stupor, Jet wasn't as soon quieted.

"How on Earth—"

"I'll explain later," she snapped quietly, clutching the infant against her armor-padded chest before nodding at Pipsqueak pointedly. "Pip, would you mind gettin' my knives?"

The behemoth nodded meekly, performing the desired action as Smellerbee approached Jet, the successfully quieted infant still bouncing in her arms.

"My best guess is that the people who were living here came down from Gaipan," she remarked stoically. "I saw some wood cargo boxes stamped with the town's seal in a few of the huts."

Jet nodded, swaying and chewing his wheatgrass thoughtfully. "They were probably here to do some seasonal farming," he remarked. "Not that you'd know it, though, with how much those damn ash makers have burned away…"

"In any case," she interrupted, "I think that our best bet of finding any family this kid may have is in Gaipan."

Jet quirked an eyebrow, unaware of how quickly his verbal filter was disintegrating. "You sure you don't wanna keep 'im?" he quipped, the corner of his lip slowly curling upward as his train of thought intersected Sneers'. "I'm sure Longshot wouldn't mind playing da—"

If Bee hadn't been preoccupied with the bundle in her arms she would have done more than glare daggers at her leader just then, but all she could do (lest the child wake up and resume wailing again) was duck her head and hope that her teammates hadn't noticed how flustered she was.

"I'm not a nanny at your Freedom Fighters Daycare, _Jet_," she muttered with tactile contempt, doing her best to ignore the pang she felt as her silent companion recoiled under the brim of his hat, his reaction to the notion artfully obscured.

"Hey, hey, cool off, Bee!" he slurred, the bootleg boosting his intrepidness. "I mean, you obviously know how to take care of 'im, and you _are _a girl—"

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?!" Smellerbee hissed, clapping her hand over the child's ear as not to perturb him.

"Well, you've certainly got the _equipment_ to, you know… _feed _him…"

The tomboy froze, half inclined to laugh at her leader's ignorance if the urge to crawl into a dark hole and never come out again hadn't completely engrossed her. Hell, she might have even dropped the poor kid in shock had Longshot, ever stoic, not gently freed the girl of her burden, trying his best to hold the now-sleeping child the way the swordswoman had.

Jet barely had time to suck in his breath before Smellerbee managed to knock it out of him again with a tiny, well-placed fist to the solar plexus. As he doubled over from the blow, the swordswoman whipped out a concealed penknife from a pocket in her leather breastplate, bringing it dangerously close to Jet's nether regions.

"I don't assume that the presence of a sack between your legs means that you've got balls," she growled venomously, grimacing as she caught the stench of alcohol on his breath. "You'd do best to know how girl parts _work_ before you get drunk enough to spit out that kind of crap again."

Her leader did nothing but gurgle inaudibly in return, at which point Smellerbee turned her heels (smirking inwardly as she observed the shock on Sneers' face) and returned to her loyal friend, reclaiming the sleeping bundle with little fanfare.

"I'll be back before my watch shift," she muttered, feigning indifference as Longshot regarded her apologetically. "And in the meantime, keep Jet's head away from the bottle and out of his ass."

_A/N: New story, people! I've been working on this one on and off for a few months when I can, but now that summer is rolling around soon I feel comfortable posting it with the guarantee that I'll be able to update it at reasonable intervals. I won't update, though, unless I know I have an audience, so if you like the story and want to see more, please follow/favorite/comment! I am totally open to criticism, suggestions, and the like if they are stated politely, but a simple "Yay!" from my dear readers always makes my day!_


	2. 2 Homecoming, Pt 1

**CHAPTER TWO: Homecoming (Pt I)**

"C'mon guys…," the now more than slightly inebriated leader of the Freedom Fighters whined as he attempted to appeal for the actions that had earned him the bruise now flowering on his sternum. "You know I didn' _mean _it!"

"Sure you didn't," chirped Pipsqueak with an edge of sarcasm, "but given the circumstances I don't blame Bee for getting pissed at you."

Longshot accompanied the comment with a stinging glare toward their leader, making a point that he'd heard more than enough of Jet's sexist, uninformed banter. Too drunk to perceive the archer's message, however, Jet simply shrugged and staggered along as the troop took its usual route back to the hideout. After the remainder of their search had yielded no other promising evidence of survivors, the small band of Freedom Fighters had made the unanimous decision to return home for the night, regroup, and then return to and make final checks at the site in the morning and salvage what the Fire Nation hadn't already plundered.

Now—after nearly an hour of trudging through thorny brush and avoiding the worst of the ancient trees' knarled roots, Jet mumbling and swaying and staggering and attempting to make excuses for his behavior the entire way—all three of his present comrades were running dangerously low on patience. Sneers wore a mask of practiced apathy, but Longshot could detect the downward turn of his lip clearly enough to determine that the monk was on the cusp of requesting that Pipsqueak knock Jet out with his log and carry him the remainder of the way home. Even Pipsqueak—as deceptively gentle as he was—looked like he was contemplating a similar plan of action, and Longshot noticed in himself the unmistakable urge to raid the cellars and drain the barrels there of their fiery, mind-numbing contents before Jet would thirst for it again.

It was a saving grace when the group finally arrived at the hideout not ten minutes later. Sneers and Pipsqueak yanked tersely on two separate retractable lines hidden in the massive tree's lowest limbs, disappearing into the canopy. Rolling his eyes, Longshot strapped Jet with some difficulty into one of the harnessed lines typically reserved for injured Freedom Fighters and, with a tug, sent the boy on his way. As far as the archer was concerned, Jet was Pipsqueak's and Sneers' problem now.

At that point—exhausted and imbued with a particularly nasty migraine—Longshot crouched at the base of the tree, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a long-held breath. It was hard for him to distinguish exactly what aspect of his day had been most taxing: between the razed village, the bodies, Smellerbee, the baby, and Jet's whisky-inspired tirade, the archer couldn't possibly pinpoint and meditate on a specific event that had affected him in the past couple of hours. Now, as his thoughts and questions and memories zoomed about his head like a loud and angry swarm of mosquito-wasps, the sheer volume of Longshot's preoccupations was enough that he knew better than to try to lift his hand and swat the pests away.

And so he sat, silent as ever, taking in instead the chirps of evening cricadees and the distant chatter of hog-monkeys, and before long the lullaby of dusk had pushed away the once impervious buzz and moved him to sleep.

* * *

Rolling grass ticked Smellerbee's ankles as she glanced at the Gaipan settlement from the summit of a large hill, the cogs in her head turning in an effort to devise a plan for getting from her current location to the town not too far below. Of course, in late summer, thick weeds and brush obscured even the most weathered of dirt paths, and with the added hindrance of the small child sleeping soundly from a makeshift sling about the swordswoman's neck and shoulder, the proposed journey would take far longer than she'd originally anticipated.

"You're a real pain, aren't you?" she mumbled, staring in mock-contempt at this fresh addition to her person. The child, however—having never broken the silence since Bee's departure from the wreckage—had long since drifted off to sleep, and had remained as such for the past hour despite the bumps and stumbles all too frequently encountered on the decidedly less developed roads of Gaipan. The swordswoman suspected that the constant movement may have actually played a role in keeping the child silent for so long—in any case, though, she wasn't going to complain about the single positive circumstance that had befallen her that day.

If anything, the responsibility of taking the child back to Gaipan was far less of a burden than the prospect of dealing with Jet in his current condition: if her leader's prior encounters with hard Fire Nation whiskey were any indication, Smellerbee was willing to bet her entire set of knives that Sneers, Pipsqueak, and Longshot had individually contemplated the…_elimination_ of the source of their mutual migraine. The swordswoman grinned, making a mental note check up on the boys later to make sure that they hadn't _actually_ killed each other.

The task at hand, however, took precedence over the girl's musings, and before long she had swiftly begun her descent into the valley below, hopeful that her mission would be complete before sundown.

* * *

Upon reaching the towering wooden gate that marked the village entrance, Smellerbee had taken a moment by the nearby river to rearrange her appearance. While the task was necessary in order to separate rumors of vigilante children in the forest from a perceivable truth, she couldn't help but stare at her reflection in the water without a measurable level of discomfort: the swordswoman had shed her breastplate and trademark weapons, concealing them in the bushes before hastily scrubbing her face free of paint and combing through her hair with wet fingers, tugging at the untamed knots and frizz. Though the daylight was waning, Smellerbee could tell that the girl staring up at her from the watery mirror— with her wide eyes and rosy cheeks— hardly resembled the warrior that she had become.

Before she could dwell on the image further, though, a gurgle startled her to her senses.

"All right," she affirmed, scooping up the child from the bank, doing her best to coax him back to sleep with gentle bounces. "Let's get you home, you little hogmonkey."

* * *

_(A/N: Sorry for the short update full of fillers: finals week is approaching, and I haven't had as much time to write as I'd like. I'll get the rest of the chapter up soon._

_Also: thanks to Jordan, somniumweb, and tumblr's wiltedredrose for the words of praise and encouragement! I deeply appreciate the support!)_


	3. 2 Homecoming, Pt 2

**CHAPTER TWO: Homecoming (Pt II)**

It was after nightfall when Smellerbee finally slipped through the town gate, her person somewhat lighter now that the delivery had been conducted. The swordswoman smiled, moving with newfound ease as she sneaked past the night watchman and made for the stream to retrieve her belongings. Those matters addressed, she slinked back into the woods, her favorite dagger in one fist and Longshot's red mantle in the other.

As the village lights faded in the distance Smellerbee slowed her pace, now confident in the unlikelihood that she would encounter an adversary so far from known civilization. Nevertheless she carefully scanned her surroundings with her senses, avoiding suspicious sounds and smells as she followed the path laid out by the stars. Her swiftness was fair and true, for it wasn't long before she reached the familiar ring of trees that marked the outskirts of her home. Smellerbee sighed in relief, and felt her remaining energy leave her as the prospect of collapsing into bed—however hard and lumpy it was—suddenly became a plausible possibility.

She reached up to wipe the thin sheen of sweat on her brow, aiming to catch what her headband hadn't. The recognizable sensation of her sleeve, however, was interrupted by a different texture. It was only then that the swordswoman realized that she still tightly clutched the archer's kerchief in her gloved fist.

_[]_

_"__It's okay, dear, we'll take him from here. We'll make sure to get him to a safe place before the night's out."_

_Smellerbee glanced down at the ball of warmth in her arms, only now taking in the features of the child's face. She counted the faint lashes on his closed eyelids, their blue venation still showing in the faint lamplight. His chubby arms were balled up tight, tiny fingers gripping the edge of Longshot's mantle like a vice. Despite all he'd been through—despite the fact that, some miles away, his parents lay charred and dead in shallow graves—here he was, perfect and at peace, innocence untouched by tragic circumstances. _

_She couldn't help but wonder: if every child came to the Freedom Fighters like this, would there even be a Freedom Fighters at all?_

_"__He likes to be walked," she murmured, her eyes never leaving the child's face. "I carried him for hours and hours, and he never made a peep s'long as I was moving."_

_"__He knew he was safe and going to a better place," the matron replied as she relieved Smellerbee of her burden, supporting the child expertly with her forearm. "Thank you for bringing him home."_

_The Freedom Fighter nodded, trying to ignore the growing ache in her chest as she folded the makeshift blanket, the rough cloth still warm with the infant's presence. She tucked it away gingerly, as if its essence could be broken with a callous tug, exhaling softly as she ripped her eyes from the child to regard the woman who now held him. _

_More than anything, though, she was sorry for this child's dismal prospects: for the fact that he had been lucky enough to be granted loving, caring parents, only to have them snatched away. How long would it be until his innocence faded; until this child realized that he could never be loved as he had been before; until the seed of pain and hatred was sowed in his heart?_

_"__I'm sorry about the village," she finally managed to say, resolve hardening as the barriers she'd built so long ago snapped back in place. Without delay she bowed politely in farewell and, without glancing back, vanished into the inky blackness of night. _

_The woman sighed, her eyebrows furrowed in a tent of consternation. _

_"__As am I, dear. As am I."_

_[]_

No sooner had Smellerbee unfurled the garment—using her chest plate as a surface to smooth out the creases she'd so carelessly made—when she encountered its owner at the roots of the Freedom Fighter base's main tree, his consciousness long ago claimed by sleep.

The girl froze, suppressing a surprised gasp: a Freedom Fighter was never seen this exposed so low beneath the canopy, no matter the time of day or night. Given how frequently Fire Nation troops and Earth Kingdom citizens passed through the area, anyone not expressing a measurable level of prudence could reveal the position of the entire base, and—depending on the nationality of the encountered party—could end very badly for the Freedom Fighter involved.

Smellerbee thought that the archer—as quiet and disciplined as he was—would be the least likely of their troop to violate this unspoken rule, and yet here he was, the stiff and proper image he had been known to carry reduced by what she could only guess was exhaustion. Indeed, Longshot's sinewy limbs radiated from his torso in crooked paths, molding with the pattern of the tree's massive roots, and the tunic she'd so frequently observed last the entire day without suffering a single stain or wrinkle was positively disheveled. Hardly any of his fine ebony hair was still pulled up in the wolftail he'd so meticulously constructed that morning, instead falling in front of his face in a dark, tangled mess, wafting occasionally with his deep and rhythmic exhalations.

The image was so entirely unexpected that—despite the day she'd had—Smellerbee couldn't help but crack a smile, glad to know that she hadn't been the only person in the whole group to have felt the difficulty and strenuousness of the past few hours.

_At least he was able to take his mind off of things long enough to get some sleep_, thought the swordswoman wistfully as she tentatively placed her hand on the boy's shoulder, regretting that she'd have to wake him up and get him back to the hideout if she was to be sure of his safety for the night.

"Longshot," she whispered, giving the archer's shoulder the tiniest of shakes. "C'mon, man, let's get you to bed. It's late and you don't wanna know what kind of shady stuff lurks around here at ni—"

She stumbled over her words as his eyes fluttered open, his entire body suddenly rigid with consciousness. He attempted to get on his feet using the massive tree's roots as handholds and the leverage of the trunk, but the endeavor only succeeded in pushing the archer further into the rooted fissure. For a split second his expression screamed fear—Smellerbee could only liken it to a cornered animal—but upon recognizing his fellow Freedom Fighter, phased seamlessly into ease.

"What's the deal?" Smellerbee half laughed, half snapped, giving his shoulder a quick pat before stepping back to give the archer some air.

Longshot raised an eyebrow, gesturing to his cheek as he continued to blink rapidly, the sleep still clearing from his eyes.

"You didn't recognize me."

Longshot nodded curtly, his gaze flicking up to the leafy canopy before he resumed eye contact.

"Yeah, I left the rest of my red paint and kohl here," she admitted dryly, offering her friend a hand. He took it gratefully, rising to his feet in a single fluid motion. "But I figured that it'd be better to drop off the kid if I didn't look like a half-starved raccoon dog, ya know?"

The archer tilted his head at her again, the rightmost corner of his lip curling upward in the subtlest of smiles. He'd never tell her, but he'd come to like her choice of war paint and couldn't help but observe how much it matched her personality. Even without the formidable red stripes on her cheeks and the harsh smear of black on her lower eyelids, the swordswoman's tenacious spark remained, radiating with purpose and brutal efficiency. Though he had learned early on in his time as a Freedom Fighter that Smellerbee was a force all her own—and that to be on the receiving end of her blade was to look into the eyes of Death herself—Longshot had also come to develop an unusual connection with the girl: one that extended beyond their complementary skill sets as warriors and even, in a way, transcended the traditional boundaries of friendship. Precisely how or from what direction this threshold had been crossed was still lost to him, but the rumor-fueled jeers and kissing noises frequently made by other Freedom Fighters whenever the two were seen together made it more than clear what everyone else thought.

"You okay, Longshot?"

The addressed started, a twitch in his jaw betraying an involuntary grimace. He nodded slowly in affirmation, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Yeah: I'm beat, too," Smellerbee replied, stretching her twig-like arms in a fantastic yawn. She was sure that fatigue and Jet's drunken episode weren't the only sources of Longshot's apparent disgruntlement, but was far too tired to delve into the heart of the matter at this hour.

As if to reiterate her point, the swordswoman reached for the concealed tug line, shaking a few leaves loose as she dislodged the tangled cable. She finally pulled it free, cursing Sneers' clumsy jig reset work under her breath before stepping on the small wooden foothold.

"I'm headed back," she announced, suppressing another yawn. "You coming?"

Longshot nodded in affirmation, securing his own line in quick succession before he peered back to his partner. A challenge glittered in Smellerbee's eyes, passing through her lips with a wry smile before she gave the line a final tug and was swallowed by the leaves.

"Race ya."

* * *

_(A/N: This part of the fic has Longshot and Smellerbee at 14, and Jet at 16: so, in all likelihood, just a little bit before the Gaang meets the Freedom Fighters canonically.)_


	4. 3 An Iron Cage

**CHAPTER 3: An Iron Cage**

_(TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains references to domestic abuse. Please read at your own discretion.)_

_[before]_

"Shhh, Suuna, shhh…you're okay; Mommy will be back soon."

Sharp cries cut through the dusk as the infant writhed in the cradle, her pudgy legs pedaling as she tested her vocal cords for the umpteenth time. Her eyes and fists were wrought shut in a gesture that Mifung could recognize as a demand for attention—or, more specifically, a long-unheeded request to be fed.

The girl sighed, hastily rolling her braid into a loose bun before scooping up her niece in her arms, bouncing occasionally in an attempt to lull the child back into a slumber.

"Where are you, Ninta-i?"she hissed, rubbing Suuna's back as comfortingly as she could manage as she paced about the room, wondering what had befallen her sister so close to curfew. If her word was anything to go by, Ninta-i should have been back at least an hour ago— just long enough to pick up some meat and vegetables for the evening meal; she'd promised—but the setting sun was beginning to raise the question of whether she'd be home in time to even cook what she'd purchased. Mifung shuddered to think what Lao Feng would do to her if he came home—hungry after a long day of conducting his slimy business—to find that his dinner had not been prepared. She was not ignorant of the fact that her sister had sustained a black eye not long after she'd shattered one of his celadon plates last month and, though Ninta-i had denied the incident altogether, Mifung knew that her sister's typical method of coping would not shield her (or Suuna, for that matter) from future inflictions.

Mifung was stirred from her musings by Suuna's hungry wails. Pushing stray wisps of auburn hair from her eyes, the girl fetched a sucker, and attempted to coax the plug into her niece's mouth. After some maneuvering she had succeeded, sighing in relief as some long-awaited silence finally befell them.

"Thank the Spirits," she breathed, allowing the child to grasp her pinky as he slumped against the wall, overcome with fatigue. "How on Earth does Ninta-i deal with you all day?"

Then, as if on cue, Mifung heard footsteps at the doorway, followed by the jangling of keys.

"Nini!" she gasped as her sister's familiarly round face appeared at the threshold, her shoulders bowed by the weight of the basket she bore on them. "Are you okay? You said you'd be back more than an hour ago, and its already past curfew!"

"I'm sorry, Mimi," she breathed, rushing into the kitchen before setting down her groceries. "I was with Chang and lost track of time, and then Mrs. Matsuda closed down her vegetable stand earlier than usual—"

"It's fine," Mifung interrupted, trying to be as reassuring as she could as her older sister bowed her head in shame. "I would have much rather been here taking care of Suuna than back at home: mother would have probably made me recite a stupid tea ceremony or get that damned dress fitted, anyway."

She approached her sister, coaxing Suuna gently into her arms. Mifung smiled as she saw her sister's fatigued eyes suddenly illuminate with affection, the corners of her mouth raised in a tender smile as she cradled the infant, the day's worries momentarily forgotten.

"She's hungry," whispered Mifung, whisking away to the kitchen. "Hold her n' feed her for a bit, and I'll get dinner started."

Grabbing a pair of spark stones and a few logs, Mifung set about preparing the stove, doing her best to remain quiet as she set a massive cast-iron skillet onto the heated surface.

You're making curry, right?"

Ninta-i nodded, regarding her younger sister with a grateful smile as she dutifully proceeded with the task, stripping the vegetables of their skins and husks with deft precision. Not five minutes had passed before the first of the ingredients had been chopped and minced, caramelizing in a thin coat of oil as the second round of vegetables was processed similarly. No one doubted Mifung's outright hatred of domestic duties, but she couldn't deny that she could perform certain tasks—especially those involving tools—with unparalleled efficiency. Her older sister didn't have to peer over the countertop to know that every single chunk of meat and vegetable was uniform in size.

"I never quite understood how you manage to do that," said Ninta-i, gesturing at a neat pile of chopped carrots.

"Huh, this? S' nothing,"Mifung replied, nonchalant. "I suppose if I have to know how to do anything, it's cook, right? It's not like I'm going to fetch a high dowry by being pretty and delicate."

Her tone now bore a scathe to match the intensity of her knife strokes, slicing through the root vegetable as if it were soft butter. "But hey: if I end up with a fat, slobbering miser for a husband, I might have some chance of feeding him to death before he tries to bed me."

"You'd better hope he doesn't crush you first," joked Ninta-i, lifting her shirt to allow Suuna to suckle.

Mifung snorted as she tipped the carrots into the pan. "I'll take that over giving the fat lout the satisfaction of bearing and raising his child."

Ninta-i's face grew solemn as Mifung curtly wiped the knife clean and cast the soiled cutting board into the sink, turning her back to direct her full attention to the stovetop. For a moment only the pop and sizzle of frying vegetables permeated the silence, which even then seemed to echo with emptiness.

"Mimi—"

"How do you do this every day?" she blurted, turning to face her sister. "How can you let that—that _toad-slug_ put his hands all over you? Why doesn't Chang—"

"Keep you voice down, Mifung!" Ninta-i ordered, her eyes flitting frantically toward the doorway as she instinctively clutched Suuna closer to her breast. Startled by the primal fear in her elder sibling's eyes, Mifung didn't need to be told twice to exercise caution when discussing this—_matter_.

"If Chang gets into this, Mifung, Lao Feng is going to suspect something," she whispered, not tearing her eyes from the front door. "If Lao finds out that Suuna isn't his—"

"It won't matter."

Ninta-i bristled, fighting to keep the fear from her words.

"What do you mean, _it won't matter_? H-he will have Chang _killed_! He will take my child away from me, Mifung: he will sell her into slavery—"

Mifung snapped.

"And how is that any different from her fate here? Is it not slavery that, after her first moon blood, every girl in this village is practically _sold _by her family to be the property of a man, and one she does not love no less?!"

"But Lao—"

"It doesn't _matter_ if Lao never finds out, because no matter how good of a wife you are—no matter how obedient and submissive you are, no matter how well you keep the house, no matter how many times you _pleasure_ him—_Spirits_, it doesn't even matter how many of _his_ childrenyou bring into the world: he will _never_ stop beating you, Ninta-i, until you are cold and dead!"

The girl's knuckles had turned white from her grip on the wooden spatula, though the vegetables she'd been stirring with it had been all but neglected, moved to the cooler side of the stove as Mifung swiveled to face her sister head-on, her tear ducts threatening to yield.

"Chang _loves_ you, Nini. He loves you and wants to spend his life with you, and I can't imagine that he would want anything more than to be there for you and Suuna, but that can't happen unless you get away from this terrible place!"

Shudders wracked Mifung's tiny frame as the sobs rose up from her throat. Ninta-i, already weeping freely, extended her free arm in invitation, pulling her sister into a tight embrace. For a moment they just held one another, Suuna nestled snugly in between them and, if only for a few moments, were as ignorant of the evils of the world as the slumbering infant.

"I can't lose you, Nini," whispered Mifung, some measure of her emotional balance restored, "and I will do anything it takes to get you, Chang, and the baby out of here undetected, I swear it."

The tension and anger dissipated, and in their place arose a beacon of resolve and hope, for they had had a glimpse of the world beyond the iron cage.

Ninta-i smiled sadly, pushing back a stray lock of hair from her sister's face as their hold was broken.

"I will go," she said, "so long as we go together."

* * *

_A/N: I'm getting into Smellerbee's motives for running away from home (which, as the AvatarWiki states, accounts for her enlistment in the Freedom Fighters), at which point she is about 11 or 12. Her sister, Ninta-i, is about 16, and Suuna is about 3 months old. As for names:_

_Nintai__(Japanese): patience; endurance (nickname: Nini)_

_Mífung__(Chinese): bee (nickname: Mimi)_

_Thanks again for reading, and please comment if you have any questions or statements!_


	5. 4 Detour, Pt 1

**CHAPTER 4: Detour**

**Part I**

_[now]_

"All right, we'll take a break here!"

Sneers all but dropped the crate he had been carrying at his feet, fumbling for the waterskin at his hip with one hand while wiping off the thin sheen of sweat on his brow with the other. It did not take him long to find refuge under a shade tree with several of the other Freedom Fighters, each having more or less repeated his actions in retreating from the burning noonday sun.

"If we keep moving at this rate," muttered Smellerbee, rubbing a sore spot on the small of her back after standing completely upright for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, "it'll be this time tomorrow before we get back home with all of this stuff."

Longshot nodded in agreement, briefly removing his conical hat to fan himself. The entire front of his tunic was damp with perspiration, flecked occasionally with the beads of sweat that had fallen from his temples, while his mouth—characteristically a thin and impermeable line—was open and gasping for air. If his appearance was anything to judge by, Smellerbee was inclined to believe that the archer was absolutely miserable but, as the swordswoman knew from experience, he would never let it on to the others that he could do with a more substantial amount of time to recuperate. That he carried almost as much as Smellerbee and Sneers did combined surely wasn't making the daunting task any easier, either.

"Longshot, you're gonna get sick if you keep this up for much longer," chastised Smellerbee, rolling up her sleeves and loosening her chest plate just enough to provide some relief from the heat. She even tugged off her gloves—a rare occurrence even in this weather—though her wrists were still bound tightly with linen.

The archer gave her a sidelong glance, trying (and failing) to convince her of his competence in the present situation.

"Hogmonkey shit," she muttered. "All of us here know that you're _manly_ or whatever: you don't need to prove that by being so damned stubborn."

He refused to acknowledge her.

Smellerbee sighed, the heat taking too much out of her to carry on a one-sided argument.

"Don't you know that it'll be a_ lot_ less embarrassing if you ask for a break now than if you pass out and fall on your face?"

He tilted his head.

"Not as embarrassing as asking a friend to help you out though, huh?"

The girl scoffed, rubbing her hands in the dirt to improve her grip on the crate she was carrying. Judging by Sneers' emergence from the woods (he had obviously just returned from taking a leak), their break was quickly coming to an end.

"Whatever. Just let me know when you're ready to get off of your high ostrich-horse."

He rolled his eyes, replacing the shade hat back atop his head before reaching for his own crate of salvaged goods. The Fire Nation raid hadn't left much for the Freedom Fighters to collect, but there were still some construction materials and supplies that the soldiers had managed to overlook, as well as some iron farm tools that had not melted in the heat when the storage cabin had been set ablaze. He had also managed to gather some relatively un-scorched linens and blankets, both of which became very rare commodities during the colder winter months. Unfortunately all of these items were undeniably heavy and bulky, and it had been a taxing experience to ferry them from the destroyed village back to the hideout all on his own.

"Hey, granny! You coming or what?"

The swordswoman was already halfway up the next hill, clutching her own crate of spoils as Sneers bypassed her, muttering something about discretion in Fire Nation-occupied territory. She could only laugh as the archer clambered up the slope after her, shoving her playfully as he reached the summit a few seconds later.

When he finally matched her pace on the descent, Longshot had to steady himself on a nearby tree trunk to keep his legs from giving out. His face was red with exertion, and his lungs were rattling with effort, and he would have liked nothing more than to wait out the worst of the afternoon heat before continuing on their way back to the base, but he knew better than to give Smellerbee the satisfaction of admitting that he had indeed reached his limit.

Longshot was up and moving within the minute, but the swordswoman didn't know how to read the boy's body language for nothing.

"Sneers!"

The addressed, not ten ahead of them, turned around. Whiplash and Skeeter—two of the younger Freedom Fighters that had come to aid the senior members with the new acquisitions—also about-faced, their eyes filled with fear at what they thought was an impending attack. Sneers, who knew better, cracked his neck in annoyance, exasperation marring his tone.

"What is it _now_, Smellerbee?"

"It's hotter than the Firelord's nutsack out here!"

The younger boys' fear dissolved into sniggers, and even Longshot—though her outward lewdness hardly ever elicited a reaction from him—couldn't suppress a smile.

"Well what do you want me to do about it, draw Ozai an ice bath? Or better yet, you can keep being as loud as you're being and the Fire Nation will carry your message—along with all of our heads—back to the Firelord himself."

"Even the _ash-makers_ don't go out in this heat!" retorted Smellerbee, pulling at her collar. "And in any case, we'll all die anyway if we keep travelling without a proper break."

Sneers still wasn't convinced.

"Look," she explained, relieved to see out of the corner of her eye that Longshot was finally recuperating from his sprint up the hill. "We're about five minutes east of the stream, right? It's a short detour, and there are plenty of places on the bank that are hidden enough from view that no one would see us."

"_Fine_," said Sneers. "We'll take an hour down by the water."

"_Yes_!" cheered Whiplash, flashing the swordswoman a toothy grin. "Thank you, Miss Smellerbee."

"_Miss_ Smellerbee?" she repeated, amused. "Ain't_ that_ fancy."

"Yeah, Jet told us to call you that," he piped, the jangling of various utensils in the sack hanging over his shoulder emulating his excitement.

"Oh, _Jet_ told you to call me Miss Smellerbee," she laughed, figuring that this would be the first of his brown-nosing to make up for yesterday's behavior. "And how long did Jet say that you have to call me _Miss_ Smellerbee? A week?"

"No, until you get married!" replied Skeeter.

She nearly choked on her own spit.

"_Married_?"

"Yeah, then we have to call you Mrs. Longshot."

Sneers snorted, unable to help himself as the archer stumbled over a fallen log that he regularly would have been able to elude. Smellerbee's scowl could have frightened Koh, and the archer feared that her teeth might crack if she clenched her jaw any tighter.

"And _when_," she inquired slowly, doing her best to hold back the worst of her fury and humiliation, "did Jet tell you this?"

"Last night at dinner," said Skeeter. "He was talking and walking kind of funny, though, and didn't come until we were almost done. Skillet was really mad at him, and sent him to bed."

"Well it's good to know that there's _someone_ around the hideout with enough sense to keep things in order," she spat, glaring at Sneers. "At least he didn't mention the baby…"

She shut her mouth, but judging by the way Skeeter's eyes were practically popping out of his skull, she was already too late.

"Wait, you and Longshot are having a _bab_—?"

"_NO!_"

* * *

_A/N: Obligatory implied Smellershot because I can. _

_Whiplash and Skeeter are just a coupla young Freedom Fighter ragamuffins whose names I just pulled out of my butt. I guess I'll include them later: I kinda envisioned Whiplash as a young whippersnapper with ADHD and a neck tic or something. He adores Smellerbee and gets excited by little things. Let's say he's ten. Skeeter is nine and is so named because he tends to be bothersome like a mosquito. His nosiness pays homage to the Harry Potter series' Rita Skeeter._

_Skillet, of course, is from Sio-Ute's 'Where Words Fail' (which I have unashamedly read, like, three times because it's beautiful and perfect and you should read it too because wow), who is so named because she works in the Freedom Fighters' kitchen and carries around a frying pan. I imagine that she's none too happy with Jet's drinking habit, either! XD I'll give her two assistants of my own creation, though, one of whom I have named Cookie (after the bean-loving hillbilly chef from the Disney Atlantis movie). They'll probably pop up later, too. _

_Also, thanks for being patient with me, ad I'm sorry for posting so late: I'll try to get a chapter up every weekend, but I spent a good portion of the weekend moving all of my shit out of my dorm and wasn't able to write that much. In any case, though, thanks __so__ much for reading! Hopefully I'll get Part II up soon :)_


	6. 4 Detour, Pt 2

**CHAPTER 4: DETOUR**

**Part II**

_[now]_

"I'm gonna kill him."

Smellerbee kicked her legs in the water, which she had submerged up to her knees from her perch on the shaded riverbank. Longshot, a few feet to her left, more or less mimicked her position, though he'd spared the water the agitation and had just let his legs bend with the current. He hadn't 'said' anything—figuratively or literally—since the troop had decided to take a brief respite at the river, and neither had Smellerbee, up until this point: they had just carried on almost robotically in mild shock, the silence that they usually comfortably shared now laced with tension and anger.

"What gives him the _right_," she huffed, digging her fingers into the soft loam of the bank, "to go around and—and _say_ things like that?! '_Mrs. Longshot'_… ugh, no one is _ever_ gonna take me seriously again if that catches on...oh, don't go acting all _offended_ on me!"

The archer's theatrical pout earned him a half-hearted splash, but did not have the uplifting affect that he had originally intended: Smellerbee's fury had dimmed down to a low simmer, yes, but Longshot could sense that the issue was still far from resolved. He bowed his head in apology, looking upon the girl with concern etched in his face.

"You're not the problem, Longshot, you know that," she mumbled. "It's my own stupid fault for getting us both dragged into this, with that stupid Cat-gator game on that stupid night with stupid Jet and—"

Longshot shook his head firmly. The situation that Jet had put her in that night—and the fallout that had ensued—was something beyond her control. It was unfair for him to have asked her to choose between her own personal desires and a direct order: whatever road she had taken, her dignity and reputation would have been similarly compromised anyway.

"Yeah, but I still could have left you out of it. I don't have a problem dealing with whatever I bring upon myself, but you didn't deserve that."

She swiftly drew her legs from the water, pulling her knees in close.

"I never wanted you to pay for my own mistakes."

_[then]_

"Looks like it's your turn, Sneers!"

The boy set his mug down, wiping his mouth off on his tattered sleeve before reaching for the bottle in the middle of the table. With an imprecise, yet satisfactorily affective flick of the wrist he'd sent the emerald-toned Fire Nation wine flask in wobbling circles, the vestiges of its liquid contents scattering about in a wide arc of ruby-red droplets. Other bottles—not yet quite as empty—clattered against the solid oak in a rhythmic hum, increasing in tempo as the flask neared inertia, the open end finally resting on—

"Jet."

The monk folded his hands as he regarded their leader, patiently awaiting his attention as the shuang-gou wielder finished his swig. Only when he'd slammed his filthy ceramic vessel face-down on the equally filthy wooden surface did Jet regard his address, flashing a smirk from across the table.

"Get ready to eat shit, bun-head," he taunted, extending a fist to meet Sneers' just over the bottle that had destined their duel.

"Drink piss, you womanizing bastard," the monk shot back, bouncing his clenched fist to the familiar chanting of the rest of the game's participants, never once dropping his challenger's gaze.

"Rat-viper, ostrich-horse, boar-q-pine!"

Draw at ostrich-horse.

"Rat-viper, ostrich-horse, boar-q-pine!"

Sneers' characteristic smirk dropped as he observed that Jet's pointer and middle fingers had curled to form fangs.

"Rat-viper poisons boar-q-pine," he slurred, rolling his neck around to work out the kinks. "So what will it be, Sneers: are you a truth-er or a dare-er?"

"Dare," he replied, hardly blinking.

Jet's grin widened. "Take off your shirt."

The monk rolled his eyes, complying despite the laughs and jeers from the other players.

"For the next three turns," he continued, teetering precariously as he leaned on his weathered stump stool, "you are a ventriloquist, and your belly button is your puppet. Everything you say goes through him."

The challenge was met with roars of laughter, and even Sneers himself chuckled: he couldn't deny Jet's creativity, even when it was usually helped along by copious amounts of alcohol.

So he grabbed a bit of pudge on either side of his navel, squishing the folds together as he assumed a sarcastic falsetto.

"Sneers' belly button kindly wishes Jet to fuck off," he mimed, only loudening the giggles and peals from the spectators.

A turn (and several glasses of wine) later, one of Sneers' navel monologues was interrupted by an impatient knock on the wall.

"Ah, Smellerbee! Longshot! Come join us for a bit, would'ya?"roared Jet, throwing his arms wide in welcome as one of the Freedom Fighters' newest recruits stood in the threshold, a tattered map of the local Earth Kingdom region marked with several precise charcoal notations clenched in her fist. Longshot flanked her, similarly laden with supply lists and additional notes.

"In a minute, Jet," Bee replied, eyeing Sneers' bare torso with visible disapproval. She had long since learned not to question whatever was going on in the mess hall during a game of Cat-gator, but the sight—no, the _stench_ of cheap wine and icky, sweaty teenage boys was something she had yet to see the appeal of.

"I'd better check that crate of booze off of the inventory list," she muttered, elbowing her way in between Piper and Sneers (_eew_) for a spot at the table. Longshot squeezed in on her right, grimacing as he realized that he'd just put his elbow in a latent puddle of spilled booze and soaked his forearm wraps.

Smellerbee, seeing that she had her leader's attention, wasted no time in giving a summary of the day's findings.

"Longshot n' I have been going through the letters we found during the raid today, and we've marked out a path as to where this convoy had been and what they'd done in the past few weeks. Based on this information we think that—"

"Aww, c'mon, guys, we don't need a report right this second!" Jet interjected. "Today, my friends: today, we celebrate a great victory over the Fire Nation, right boys?"

It was another minute before the boys' raucous expressions of approval died down enough for Jet's voice at a normal volume was able to break through the chatter again.

"S' there any way that we can go over this tomorrow?" he slurred, taking a swig straight from the bottle. "We're in the middle've a game of Cat-gator, an' I have yet to see Sneers act out the rest of his dare—"

"_Fine_," the girl huffed, tucking the map into one of her pockets. Longshot sent her a reproachful look as he reluctantly stuffed the remainder of the documents in his quiver: if how drunk he was now was any indication, 'tomorrow' would probably end up turning into 'next week.'

"But I'm with 'Shot on this," she warned: "if you're too hung-over tomorrow to actually hear about our findings—"

"I know, I know, you'll kick my ass from here to Ba Sing Se, yadda yadda yadda… but c'mon, take a break! We're not gonna get anything else done today, so why don't you two loosen up a bit?"

He sent the overturned flask to her side of the table with a flick of his fingers. Smellerbee sent the bottle twirling, and a new game was begun.

* * *

Piper had just finished his armpit fart serenade to the Earth Kingdom national anthem when the bottle reached Longshot again. He'd spun—Sneers—and lost—boar-q-pine impales ostrich-horse—and taken his usual punishment—truth.

Sneers scratched his chin: the archer was conveniently difficult to 'translate' during Cat-gator games, which usually limited his 'truth' punishments to questions that could be answered with either a nod or a shake of the head. Nevertheless, Jet had somehow managed to catch him off-guard a couple of times over the years, so he knew it was possible.

But then again, it had been awhile since he had been asked _that _question and, well, with a few new girls joining the Freedom Fighters in the past few months…

"You kissed a girl yet, Longshot?"

The boy was as calm as ever as he shook his head, though from her lower-than-average vantage point Smellerbee could detect that the tips of his ears—obscured from the others by the shade of his wide-brimmed hat— had turned a deep scarlet.

"Ah, c'mon, 'Shot, you gotta get some action _one_ of these days!" shouted Jet, spilling about half the contents of his mug as he gesticulated. "You'd better get going or Sneers is gonna beat you to it!"

"What are you guys, like, five?" implored Smellerbee, snatching the bottle from the center of the table before Sneers could launch a protest. "It's not a damn contest to see who can swap mouth-juice first."

"Nah, Bee: the_ real_ contest is who gets laid first."

The swordswoman rolled her eyes, gloved fingers drumming rhythmically on the armrest as another impromptu toast momentarily interrupted the game. Longshot glanced at her in apology, to which she replied with a shrug and the understanding that she needn't press the matter further.

* * *

When the chatter had finally died down again a few moments later, Smellerbee was poised to take her turn. She waited until everyone had taken a seat, their cups freshly filled, before resuming the round.

"Here goes!"

An emerald kaleidoscope glittered on the ceiling as she spun the bottle into motion, flickering with the tempo of the lantern flame several feet above their heads, spinning, spinning, slowing, landing—

On Jet.

She had a bad feeling about this.

The boy cracked his knuckles, whipping his head around to work out the kinks in his neck as he flashed her a smile, cool as ever.

"All right, Busy Bee, let's see what you've got."

Smellerbee bit her lip, suppressing a fidget as her leader's gaze turned uncomfortably predatory. She longed to look away—away from that inherent _darkness_ that Jet harbored, lurking in the shadows of his charisma until lust, be it for power or blood, drew it forth, echoing endlessly in the depths of his eyes—

"Rat-viper, ostrich-horse, boar-q-pine!"

Ostrich-horse tramples rat-viper.

_Shit. _

Well, she couldn't back out now.

The tension had become sufficiently tangible to the point that the other Freedom Fighters had either slowed or ceased their light chatter, their attention now drawn by the more promising prospect of excitement occurring before them.

Jet did not speak again until even the clinking of glasses and mugs had ceased.

"Tru—?"

"Dare."

Her glare made it very clear that the premature response had not been made out of nervousness. Jet's eyebrows raised in turn: he liked this girl's spunk; her eagerness to …meet a challenge.

"C'mere," he ordered, beckoning Smellerbee from her seat with his free hand. She obeyed, eyeing her leader warily as she circled around the table, stooping as he whispered something in her ear.

The others looked on with a mixture of amusement and confusion as Smellerbee resumed her full height again, looking as if she had been caught with her fly was down. She shuffled back to her seat, fists clenched and eyes glued to the floor, disregarding Longshot's concerned gaze as she sat back down.

Sneers looked on, raising an eyebrow. "So…?"

"Three seconds," said Jet, grinning evilly as he rested his elbows on the table, perching his head atop folded hands. "Shall we count them for you, Bee?"

She snorted, making a rather lewd gesture at the boy before finally turning to face the archer.

"I'm really sorry, Longshot."

He'd barely had a chance to ask her why when she pushed his hat back, grasped his hollow cheeks in her hands, and—

* * *

It had been messy, and loud, and had probably earned him a couple of bruises, but with a few well-placed glares and a shove or two Longshot had finally managed to make his way out of the mess hall. Bee, being as tiny and lithe as she was, had managed to escape just moments before, but the archer was not surprised to emerge from the dining room and find that the girl had vanished. Even the greenest of the Freedom Fighters knew that Smellerbee could make herself sparse in a heartbeat, and as he continued to flee the growing sound of raucous voices in his pursuit he had never more envied her elusiveness.

Even if she was quick, though, Longshot had spent enough time with Bee to know that she would probably be in one of several places: when she was angry, she typically went to a little sheltered clearing by the river to practice her knife-throwing or, when she was especially livid, to hack away at an old oak with one of her daggers like a beaver-pecker. When she wanted to clear her mind and cool off, she'd get industrious, sit on her bed and go through her collection of stolen weapons, cleaning and sharpening and organizing and reorganizing her cache as she pleased. When she got antsy—usually before a raid—the girl would sit cross-legged on the main deck of the hideout and repair the tears in her clothes and armor, or when a raid yielded an interesting load of books she would read, sometimes by candlelight deep into the night. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, Longshot would sit with her and whittle arrows, and not a word or a thought would pass between them for hours. The memory ached in his heart, and the archer found himself yearning for the familiarity; the simplicity and ease that their friendship had been.

Because even though Jet had dared her; even though her face had scrunched up in distaste as she'd smashed her lips into his; even though he knew that sometime in the near future they'd put it behind them and carry on as usual, Longshot couldn't shake the feeling that things would never quite be the same.

He had a niggling feeling in his gut that it had had something to do with the fact that the, well, he wouldn't quite call it a _kiss_, hadn't really been that yucky at all.

If he was going to be completely honest with himself, then Longshot supposed that it had actually been kind of nice.

_[now]_

She hadn't expected the familiar weight of his hand on her shoulder, and had anticipated the reassuring squeeze on her bicep even less, but as she lifted her head to read Longshot's face she was met with the exact response that she had expected.

"No, it_'s not _okay," she affirmed, her tone resolute. "Even if it was a dare, I… I violated your personal space. At the time I only thought about it as something _I_ didn't want to do: I never considered that maybe _you_ didn't want to be, er... you know." She bristled, a light pink dusting her cheeks.

Longshot raised his eyebrows: he'd never really thought about it that way, but he could definitely see why Bee would get mad if _he'd_ tried something similar.

Smellerbee had to laugh at that. "If you tried to plant one on me I would flay you alive, _archer_," she grinned, sticking out her tongue.

The corners of Longshot's eyes crinkled in silent laughter as his ears began to match her cheeks.

Perhaps this 'new' friendship wasn't so bad, after all.

* * *

_[A/N: Cat-gator is a game I conceived for the Avatarverse: it starts off with a ring of players, and the bottle is spun to determine the first player. That person must then spin the bottle to determine their rat viper-ostrich horse-boar q pine (kinda like rock-paper-scissors) partner. Loser has to choose truth or dare, which is then determined by the winner. Plays move clockwise. I dunno... it sounded like fun to me. Also, Piper is an OC (a loud jokester, from what I've included here). _

_And oh god I'm so sorry that took so freaking long: I had writer's block, and the summer heat does this thing where if it's past 9 PM and I'm staring at a Word document for more than a minute I pass out. I've woken up on more than one occasion while writing this thing to find a couple of lines of nonsense, be it a string of incoherent letters or a grammatically…_regrettable_ sentence. Hopefully the super-long chapter kinda sorta makes up for it._

_In any case, though, I hope y'all liked the kinda shippy chapter: it was an absolute beast to articulate in the exact way that I wanted it to go. I guess when you're actually in a relationship (because I wasn't when I wrote 'Blind Date,' I can tell you that much), you learn that falling in love is a lot more complicated than it's typically made out to be. One thing that I wanted to improve on from 'Blind Date' (which was already two years ago, wow) was to really delve into a couple of characters, and to steer away from the rom-com element that I (horrifyingly) realized had been so prevalent in that fic. _

_While I do want to preserve some elements of humor and romance in _this_ fic, it definitely won't be a focal point, and will be a lot more about the elements and factors of the Freedom Fighters' lives that come to shape who they are and why they do the things they do. I took a fascinating class on terrorism last semester, and I learned that there are a lot more factors that lead to radicalization (and, eventually, to acts that demonstrate those beliefs) than a sad backstory and emotional instability. It is my hope that I will be able to use this knowledge to sketch out a believable and entertaining tale to pick apart the reasoning behind the deeds, and to show that these characters that I have come to cherish so much can go so much further in terms of development than time allowed them in the show and, more recently, the comics. With this in mind I will endeavor to continue with this project, as sporadically updated as it might be, so long as there are people out there who enjoy it._

_Many thanks for reading / liking / following / reviewing / whatever: your support, as always, is what keeps me going.]_


	7. 5 Scars

**CHAPTER 5: Scars**

_[now]_

_Thud. _

Sneers made a sound halfway between a grunt and a groan as he dropped the crate just inside the threshold of his hut, nearly tripping over the cumbersome object as he stumbled to his dresser to grab a towel. Sometime between now and their break down by the stream one of the boy's latent blisters had broken, and he was intent on at least cleaning and dressing the wound before attempting to decipher the box's contents.

It was long past dinnertime when he, Skeeter, Longshot, and the others had finally returned home from the retrieval mission about half an hour ago. Skillet had been kind enough to leave several helpings of leftover stew in the kitchen, and they had all supped in silence before retreating into the canopy for the night.

Sneers expected that all of them had just about passed out by now: even Whiplash had nearly nodded off during their impromptu supper, and Smellerbee had had to carry him back to his hut before turning in herself not long after. The monk would have liked nothing more than to follow suit, but now that he was home and finally able to go through the letters and invoices he'd procured from the burned settlement he knew that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep until he'd at least skimmed a few of them.

As he secured the final knot over his weeping callus, Sneers felt around his bedside table for a box of matches and a spare lamp. Some fumbling and mumbling yielded a bright flicker not moments later and, grabbing the topmost piece of singed parchment, he began to read.

* * *

Sneers had been reading for about four hours when the familiar whine and groan of pressure on the hideout's wooden deck had brought him out of his semi-conscious trance. More than a little bit eager to take a break from what had until now proven to be a rather fruitless search for intel, the monk hoisted himself from his perch to take a quick peek out his window.

"Who on _earth_ 's out at this hour?" he muttered, squinting to adjust to the less-than-generous light provided by the quarter moon. Surely the night sentry would have stuck to the perimeter rather than venture to the center of the fort during their rounds…

The creak pattern was more distinct now: as a scout Sneers would have been able to pick out the more subtle irregularities, but there was no mistaking the _tap—stumblepladplad _of a child hobbling on a cane.

Sneers grabbed the lantern and a spare blanket before vanishing out the door.

"S-Sneers?"

His voice crackled and wavered in the humidity, barely audible over the steady, ringing hum of the night creatures: so small and pained, the scout noted with a twinge of anguish in his gut, from the soft optimism Kettle typically extruded.

"Whatcha doing out here, Kettle? Is everything all right?" he whispered, consternation evident in his tone.

The boy hung his head, wincing as he put all of his weight on the cane as he dragged his right foot forward.

"My leg— "

Kettle bit his lip, trying his best to hold back the latent sob that was rising in his throat. His little body shook like a leaf, teetering precariously on the crutch as what Sneers imagined to be a terrible pain radiated from the burn scar on his calf.

"I saw that your light was on, and I didn't want to wake anyone up, so—I'm really sorry—"

"No, no, not at all; there's nothing to be sorry for," reassured the scout, reaching out for the boy's shoulder to keep him from falling over. "Let's get you some salve, okay?"

His lip quivered, but Kettle managed a nod.

"All right, grab your stick, then," ordered Sneers, wrapping the blanket around the boy's shoulders before gingerly hoisting him up, trying to jostle his leg a little as possible. "We're gonna get you feeling better soon."

* * *

Not moments later Kettle was in Sneers' bed, his leg propped up on a box cushioned with several layers of old clothes. The monk flitted about the room, muttering to himself as he pulled out several boxes of vials and small containers, his methodical movements inspiring intrigue in the younger boy enough to warrant an inquiry.

"D'you do this a lot, Sneers?" asked Kettle, wringing an old blanket in his fingers.

"Yeah, kid; there's nothing to worry about," he reassured, clearing a space on his desk with a quick sweep of the forearm. "I make the salve that Smellerbee gives you for your leg."

Sneers swelled with pride as Kettle's eyes widened in surprise. "It's my own special recipe: all of the other Freedom Fighters say it's the best stuff."

The young boy's face became stuck somewhere between confusion and admiration. "You mean that the other Freedom Fighters use the goop, too?"

The addressed paused, tilting his head as he regarded the impromptu patient. "Well, yeah, Kettle," he answered, sensing that a bigger issue was on the young one's mind. "Some of us older kids get hurt when we fight the ash-makers in the raids."

He snapped a prickly leaf off of one of the plants on his windowsill, allowing its juices to ooze into a jar. "And some Freedom Fighters are like you, Kettle," he continued, "and come here already bearing wounds. No matter how you get it, kid, it's still a cut or a burn, and so it's usually gotta be treated the same way."

Despite the explanation Kettle's perplexity continued to magnify. "But I got hurt a long time ago, Sneers," he sighed. "How come it's taking so long to get better?"

The scout sprinkled a bark brown powder on the leaf extract, mixing the two ingredients together with a small wooden rod. "Have you ever fallen, Kettle, n' scraped your knee or your elbow?"

"Yeah, lots of times; everyone has."

"Well, our bodies are really good at taking care of little things like that," he explained. "A scrape can hurt, but it's usually not as bad as 't feels. Because there is so little damage, the body can repair itself pretty well, and soon it looks like you were never hurt at all."

He offered the finished paste to Kettle, who gratefully began to slather the mixture on his afflicted leg, gingerly tracing the injury with his fingers.

"Now, when we get injured more seriously, and there's a lot more damage to the body—"

"It takes longer for the body to make itself better again," finished the boy.

"Yes, that's right."

"So it's just gonna take a really, really long time to get better?"

"Yes, Kettle," he began tentatively, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "it's gonna take awhile for you to be comfortable using your leg again. But even when you do get better, I can't promise you that things are gonna look and feel just like they were."

Sneers rolled his left sleeve up to the elbow, revealing a series of irregular depressions just past the tan line on his wrist.

"Sometimes, when a wound's deep or serious enough, it leaves a scar."

Kettle traced the marks with his eyes, his brow still knitted in consternation. "How did that happen?"

The monk's eyes fell, and his posture worsened. "When my house was burning down, a beam fell from the ceiling and kicked up some debris. I got 17 shards of hot glass, metal, and ceramic embedded in my arm when I lifted it to protect my face as—"

He trailed off as the memory scratched at the back of his mind, lurking just beyond a door he thought he'd closed long ago.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked you that!" Kettle blurted, waving his hands about frantically as if the force of his movements could scare the recollection back into latency. "I didn't mean—!"

"It's _fine_, Kettle, it's fine," he insisted, squeezing the boy's shoulder to keep him seated. "You didn't do anything wrong: I showed it to you, so you have every right to ask about it."

A dozen questions raced through his mind, each fighting for conversational dominance, but if the kid knew anything it was to not be overly nosy when inquiring about serious injuries, especially as the circumstances leading to their infliction were often traumatic.

"How long did it take to make the scar?" he offered warily, unsure if Sneers' condition still stood.

"Because they were pretty small on their own, it only took about a year for all of them to really fully heal. Before that they would crack n' bleed if I put too much strain on them."

Kettle looked down at his own injury rather scathingly. Though the throbbing pain that had woken him up and driven him to seek aid had now dulled to a softer ache, the boy knew that the affect wouldn't last forever.

"Does a scar—does _your_ scar—still hurt, Sneers?"

"Not nearly as much as it used to," he remarked, offering a small smile. "Sometimes when it gets really hot and wet outside it starts to sting and itch a little bit, but 's not that bad."

"You promise?"

The scout nodded firmly. "Every scar is different, Kettle. I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience I can promise you that things'll get better. It might seem slow-going, but_ you _willget better."

Kettle nodded as he wiped his nose on the back of his hand, remorse still lingering in his tone. "It's just that I—I didn't even _know _that you had that scar-thing on your arm."

"Most people don't," said Sneers as he rolled his sleeve back down, "but I guess that's the case with a lot of the Freedom Fighters."

"What do you mean?"

"It means that a lot've the kids here have scars, Kettle, but you wouldn't know it unless they told you."

"But why?"

Sneers took a deep breath: the sleep deprivation was wearing his patience thin, but he couldn't bring himself to deny the boy some answers. If his time at the monastery had taught him anything, it was that letting one's negative energy navigate a situation seldom resulted in a desirable outcome.

"For some people a scar is a link to a memory: a time, or a place, or a circumstance that I—that they'd rather forget."

Sneers paused, molding his words carefully.

"When I look at my scars, Kettle, I remember everything about the day that the Fire Nation took my family away from me. I remember how sad, and scared, and _angry_ I was that something so terrible could happen to such peaceful and loving people, how unfair it was that the spirits that we'd respected and revered all our lives couldn't even bother to protect us when we needed them most."

He rose from the bed, frowning and clenching his fists as Kettle looked on, hardly daring to breathe. The boy knew that he'd struck a nerve, but was at a loss as to how to resolve the entropy he had created without fanning the flames further. Of course, he trusted Sneers with his life—all of the Freedom Fighters did—but that didn't mean that he couldn't be frighteningly sincere when the occasion arose.

_Use what he's taught you. Show him that you've been listening._

Skillet's advice echoed in Kettle's memory, bouncing around in his little head for a time until, finally, it collided with an epiphany.

"Can you have scars on your spirit, Sneers?"

The scout turned about, his eyes flickering momentarily with intrigue.

"I suppose one can," he muttered, absentmindedly scratching his forearm, "but I'm not sure I have a salve for that."

Kettle's resolve, however, did not seem shaken.

"We'll make one, then."

Sneers couldn't fight the smile twitching in his lips as he felt Kettle's resolve return with those words.

* * *

It hadn't taken Kettle long to drift off to sleep after that: the kid had passed out right in Sneers' bed, the tiny sounds of his breath the only audible indication of his presence.

Sneers had continued to sift through the papers by candlelight, reading and rereading the scrawl inscribed in the charred parchment, only to huff in displeasure and add it to the growing stack of duds before grabbing something else he hadn't looked at quite so carefully yet.

The first of the morning birds had begun their songs when, after sifting through the file a third time, the scout spotted a faded, envelope. He hadn't found anything promising in it when he'd checked it two hours ago, but then again it had never occurred to him to check the front of it for a name or address.

He flipped it over, fighting to keep his tired eyes open as he tried to make out the calligraphic inscription.

"Liu Wong," he muttered aloud, remembering the contents of the letter. It had been some sort of trade invoice, but had not identified both parties.

Sneers stared at the envelope again, less than content that he couldn't determine that detail. Surely, any reputable trailer with the wherewithal to write an invoice would have at _least_ left a return address.

A return address.

He dove into the pile for another envelope, seeing the damned object with its damned tiny writing in his mind's eye. If this wasn't it then—

He'd found it, scanned it, scanned it-

There.

Sneers' hands shook as he read the inscription.

_Qi Lieng_

_Lieng Trading_

_Industrial District_

_Yu Dao_

"Uncle…"

* * *

**_A / N_**_: See I __told__ you that this story wasn't just thinly-veiled smellershot fluff XD In celebration of Book 3's release I spent a good portion of my Saturday getting this done. It was a challenging task, as I've never written Sneers before and only had a vague idea of what I wanted to convey in this scene when I started, but I hope you guys like it!_

_We don't see much of Sneers in the animated series (and even in 'The Promise' all we can see is that his loyalties and motives are pretty ambiguous, and that's because a love interest is involved and it makes a characterization reading REALLY HARD), but I hope that how I've portrayed him so far is satisfactory. I get the sense that he respects the older Freedom Fighters, but butts heads a lot with Smellerbee and (well, at least in my world) he likes to push her buttons. He's like a really annoying brother to all of the Freedom Fighters old enough to handle his taunting, but tends to be a real softie with the younger kids. The official A:tLA art book has him labeled as a scout, so I also have him as particularly perceptive and patient. Tei's 'Where Words Fail' has him portrayed kind of similarly, and I also liked his idea that that Sneers was a monk before he joined the Freedom Fighters, so I've adopted that, too._

_Kettle is an OC that I introduced to be Sneers' foil, but he kind of developed into this more complex entity as I kept writing. While I was proofreading I got a sense that Kettle is a lot like Lilo (from 'Lilo and Stitch,' obvi): he's a bit aloof and antisocial at times, but has unique relationships with the older sibling figures in his life and can be especially caring of others. I have him at about 7 years old here, at a time when he is becoming more aware and receptive of the people around him and subsequently realizing that he is not alone in the trauma (both physical and emotional) he has suffered. I'll bring him back later and get into how his empathy develops even more, particularly with animals._

_As always, __**reviews / likes / follows / comments**__ are appreciated! Feel free to suggest a prompt in the comments section, too: I'm always open for ideas on how to continue with this story!_


	8. 6 Nightwatch, Pt 1

**CHAPTER 6: Nightwatch (Part 1)**

A warm red light was just beginning to filter through the leaves as Klepfretter retired to her quarters, her shift of mandated vigilance finally drawing to an end. The night sentry blinked blearily, hardly acknowledging her peers with more than a lethargic nod as they stirred to life around her and reported to the main deck for breakfast. Dozens of children and young adults streamed past her, rattling the ziplines and packing the bridges, each more fresh and ready to start the day than the last.

The girl massaged her temples, struggling to remain awake until she had reached her own hut just two platforms over. A bed awaited her there: one of dried grass and a few tattered blankets, but a bed nonetheless, and she knew from experience that it would feel like a mattress stuffed with the finest down when she was tired enough.

"Why do we even _have _a night shift?" she muttered to no one in particular as she shuffled across the main residential platform, squinting to adjust to the daylight. As usual, nothing but a few chittering hog-monkeys and a particularly vociferous cat-owl had caught her attention in the past eight hours and, if dozens of previous shifts were any indication, there was hardly anything else this high in the canopy that could potentially pose as a threat to a troop of juvenile vagabonds.

She knew better than to question Jet's judgment, though: the boy's paranoia was notorious, but surely his behavior wasn't without cause. Klepfretter knew that he only had their best interests at heart, but she wouldn't have objected to a shorter shift or, at the _very least, _a little bit of company to ease the passage of the hours.

But at this point, she thought wearily, the Freedom Fighters were hard-pressed as it was to get all of the current shifts covered: simply put, there just weren't enough kids to maintain a full guard every night. Scarcity was nothing new to them, though: as with everything else, they'd allocate their meager resources and make the proper sacrifices when and where they were needed.

Of course it didn't mean she was any less cranky or groggy, but the girl could rest assured knowing that, even on her off days, there was always someone keeping watch. Truth be told, it was the only thing that deterred the nightmares long enough so that she could sleep at night in the first place.

And speaking of sleep (or rather, people looking very much in need of it)…

"G'morning, Sneers," she greeted, regarding the scout with a somewhat forced smile. The gesture vanished, however, when he merely grunted back.

"What's the matter with _you_?" she quipped, the fatigue lending her tone more of a bite than usual.

"Didn't sleep."

Well _duh_.

"You wouldn't happen to be the person that Arrow heard moving around earlier this morning, wouldja?"

Now that he mentioned it, the other nightwatch _had_ reported some movings-about in his sector when their surveillance perimeters had briefly intersected some time between two and four. The occurrence itself wasn't all too uncommon: many of the Freedom Fighters—especially the newer, younger ones—had difficulty sleeping through the night.

But Sneers?

"Kettle's leg was hurting again," he explained, the monk's irritability tangible from the force with which he massaged his temples. "I was just on my way to tell Skillet to leave him some breakfast for when he wakes up."

"Sound like he's doing okay, though?"

Sneers nodded. "The kid just needed some salve and a bit of rest. Nothing too serious."

"If it wasn't so serious, then why'd it take all ni—?"

"It didn't; I was already up," he interjected, making a move to go around Klepfretter. "What's it to you, anyway?"

She inspected her nails, radiating nonchalance. "Nothing… I was just wondering what was so important that you'd pull an all-nighter a day before your double nightwatch shift."

It took a moment to register, but when it did—

"_Monkey feathers!"_

* * *

Sneers was less than thrilled at the prospect approaching Skillet during the busiest part of her morning service shift. Frankly, the scout had long since concluded that the young woman's attitude and propensity to challenge just about every damned thing that came out of his mouth didn't make her pleasant at _any_ time of the day, but at the very least he could keep the inevitable argument one-sided so long as his mouth was full.

As he approached the kitchen the low rumble of breakfast chatter soon intermingled with the faint clinking of pots and pans. It wasn't long before the scout could identify Skillet's shrill, agitated voice: clearly, she was presiding over her groggy morning crew as usual.

"Cookie, do I have to remind you that you are _not _allowed to lick the spoon until the end of your shift? No—_don't_—don't just _put it back in the bowl_—"

Sneers winced as the sound of shattering glass initiated a sharp reprimand much higher (with respect to both octaves and decibels) than he was accustomed to. The kitchen assistant began to stutter in apology, but was interrupted by a long, exasperated sigh from his boss.

"Just—go get some food, Cookie, and _quickly_," she ordered, shooing the boy out of the kitchen on her way to the broom closet. "You can come back and take care of dishes when you're done."

Cookie narrowly missed Sneers as he rounded the corner, the fear in his eyes blazing a trail toward the mess hall. As Skillet came into sight the monk began to offer a casual wave, but was cut short when she shoved a dustpan and broom into his hands, tilting her head towards Cookie's mess before whipping around to resume her tasks. Knowing better than to argue, Sneers bit his tongue and set to work.

It wasn't until ten minutes later—at which point Skillet had whipped up a new batch of porridge and meted out exactly twenty-nine portions of mixture into cracked, mismatched vessels for Pipsqueak to deliver out back—that she spoke again.

"Whattaya need?" she asked, rinsing the stewpot in the washbasin.

"Kettle was hurting last night."

Skillet sighed, her brow furrowing. "Again? He was doing just fine a couple of days ago: he even went without his cane and helped me bring some things over from storage last Tuesday. _Light _stuff, Sneers," she assured, noticing his clenched fists. "The poor kid just wanted to help out a bit."

Sneers got as far as opening his mouth before the cook shut him down again, never missing a beat as she hauled the clean vessel from the suds and propped it against the wall to dry. "Having spent several hours a day with the kid for the past year I can assure you that Kettle's doing just fine, and just now starting to figure out for himself how far he can go without his cane before needing to take a break. Besides: knowing you, you baby him enough for the both of us, and if I offered him any more sympathy than you and Jet shower him with he'd probably become the consistency of jelly candy before he end of the year."

"But—"

"I know you're big into that motherly and nurturing kumbaya, Sneers, but the fact of the matter is that he'll never build the resolve to endure the hardships he has to face if you keep indulging in your desire to coddle and feel sorry for him."

"N-Now that's not fair!" he exclaimed, allowing the broom to clatter to the floor. "Kettle _came_ to me last night with tears in his eyes, telling me that he had run out of salve and that his leg was throbbing…"

"So naturally I'm inclined to think that he's fast asleep in your bed right now, and that you're here to fetch his breakfast so that you can indulge in your selfish desire to feel needed as you spoon him every mouthful?"

Sneers blanched. "Well since the Spirits haven't imbued _you_ with a motherly touch, I've kinda had to take up the mantle myself now, haven't I? Besides, I'd be surprised if _anyone _slept through your entitled squawking, you insufferable shrew!"

Skillet stormed to the far counter and, without ceremony, snatched two of the still-steaming helpings and shoved them into Sneers' hands, her eyebrows knitted together in a tight net that the monk could see was beginning to break from the pressure of impending tears. Sneers felt a lump in his throat drop to the pit of his stomach, and instantly regretted the outburst.

"Tell Kettle that I expect him to complete his chores and daily exercises by dinner."

* * *

Sneers was completely silent as Kettle polished off both portions of porridge, hardly registering the lingering warmth of the empty ceramic bowls as he returned them to the galley. Skillet was markedly absent, but that didn't stop Cookie from sending the monk a passive glare before he set out to inquire Longshot about a shift change.

* * *

_A/N: Ahaha, that update took way too long =_= Have some new characters and some angst. Still not much in the realm of plot, but it was fun to explore the characters a little bit and kind of getting back in the groove of writing this story. I don't remember if Skillet had been introduced yet, but I pilfered her from _TEi Has Pants's _Where Words Fail and added some liberties to her character in general. Klepfretter is a sassy, mischievous little kleptomaniac that loves to go undercover and mess with the local villagers._

_As always, reviews are welcome, and if you have any plot bunnies/headcanons that you'd like me to explore in the story, I'd be happy to incorporate some ideas!_

_~cfpepperz_


	9. 6 Nightwatch, Pt 2

**Nightwatch** (Part II)

To say that Longshot was bored was an understatement.

After being all but tricked into swapping watch shifts with Sneers, the archer had traced the perimeter surveillance route perhaps a dozen times, noting with disdain that the moon hadn't even completed half of its nightly journey across the sky yet. He sighed, busying his hands with the frayed end of his quiver strap as he tried to focus on the steady thrum of cicada-crickets emanating from the lower canopy. If he was going to get through the night without going crazy, distracting himself from the fact that he still had about two hours left in his shift was a definite prerequisite.

Naturally, his thoughts strayed to the day's events: he'd been exhausted by the supply trek the day before, and had been considerably sore since, but he'd still managed to go through and sort all of his findings from the raided camp and dropped off a load of blankets and some meticulously straightened-out nails to the communal storage hut. He'd inquire with Jet later about getting Sneers to patch up the loose planks on the dining platform, but given the commotion he'd overheard in the galley during breakfast he was less than inclined to make poor Skillet see him more often than she already had to—even if he _would_ be on his knees and conducting the kind of work he detested the most.

Spirits knew he deserved it, talking to Skillet like that, but the conditions of their shift swap were sufficient to keep the archer at ease: not only would Sneers be relieving the cook of her morning obligations for the next three days (yet another one of those duties he despised yet was surprisingly proficient at), but he would make a public apology at the peak of breakfast the next morning. Longshot conceded to at least be awake for _that_ before retiring to bed for the rest of the morning. With any luck, he'd be up in time for a quick spar with Smellerbee and a bath before dinner.

Longshot grinned: despite the fact that he didn't hate Sneers quite as much as Smellerbee did, he found himself really looking forward to 'telling' her all about his role in the monk's impending humiliation. In the past few days neither he nor the swordswoman had encountered much in the way of good news, and the steadily escalating Fire Nation presence around Gaipan had required that everyone be on their toes. In any case, it would be good to go a few rounds with Bee to brush up on his close-range skills, and he found that both of their moods tended to improve after they vented to one another about Jet's newest bad habit or whatever Cookie had unintentionally dropped into the stew that morning.

He had just rounded the second residential platform a thirteenth time when an all-too-familiar figure emerged from the planning room, a fistful of maps in one hand and (to Longshot's dismay) a pocket flask in the other. Though not completely incapacitated, he could tell that Jet had had at least a few swigs since dinner: he was experiencing considerable difficulty maintaining his footing on the uneven surface of the deck, and was taking longer than usual to remember which of the three bridges led to his own residence.

The archer cleared his throat just as Jet stepped onto the middle path, curtly tipping his hat in greeting as his leader whipped around. Longshot felt rather than saw his leader's eyes search for an accusation in his but, seeing none, the creases on the swordsman's brow quickly faded.

"Got a lead," he muttered, gesturing to the air with the flask. Judging by the amount of sloshing, Longshot suspected that it couldn't have been more than half full. "A source says that another ash-maker caravan's gonna pass through Gaipan in a few days. Can I expect you to join us for a little recon, 'Shot?"

Though he remained placid externally, Longshot felt his insides turn: after what had happened in the farming village less than a week ago, he had a feeling that Jet was after more than supplies.

"I need you and Bee for this one, Longshot," he said. "Can I depend on you two to watch my back during this mission?"

Though he couldn't speak for the swordswoman, Longshot was reluctant to permit Jet to venture outside of the base without company—especially if he demonstrated any intent to seek vengeance. His reckless nature and the overwhelming possibility of being outnumbered just posed too great a risk, and now was as bad a time as any for the Freedom Fighters to suddenly be without a leader.

Even so, he knew that Jet would manage to get himself into one mess or another regardless of intervening forces: trouble, it seems, was just too tempting to him.

In that case, then, they would have to do their best to not tempt trouble in the first place.

"So what you're saying is that you'll come, but only if I ditch the booze and promise only to use my blades for defense."

Longshot nodded sternly.

Jet's sigh was almost pained. "_Fine_, but only if you convince Bee to come along, too," he conceded, looking wistfully at the flask in his hand before gingerly tucking it away. "It's about time we put her in action, don't you think?"

* * *

_[two days later]_

The sweltering heat had hardly allayed at sundown.

The humidity still clung to the trees and wafted through the understory, propelled by a languid current that swirled about far beneath the canopy and worked its way into the trio's very bones. Several droplets of perspiration flew from the tip of Longshot's nose as he jerked his head upward, distracted by a rather pesky fly that had been doing laps about the brim of his hat for almost ten minutes. Though rarely irritated, the archer's nerves were considerably more frayed than usual and—given the week he'd had—he just wanted Jet to find what he needed so that they could all be home by the next morning. Spirits knew how much he needed a bath and a good night's rest.

Smellerbee and Jet's hushed voices had become audible again, creeping into range from a few yards behind him.

"So you're saying," she stated matter-of-factly, "that what these caravans carry usually depends on three things: timing, place of origin, and client."

"Yeah, something like that."

"What about prices, or supply and demand? Isn't it—"

"Don't make it _complicated_, Bee," Jet whined. "The main thing to remember is what comes in when, and how much we can take without drawing too much attention to ourselves. We do that, and we stay both well-stocked and under the Fire Nation radar."

She was less than satisfied with his answer. "And what are we supposed to be stealing with three people and at least ten miles of distance between here and the base? We have no number or turf advantage, so you better not have dragged our asses all the way out here for whiskey and moon peaches."

"Oh, quit your whining," he retorted, chuckling under his breath as he plucked a strand of wheatgrass from the forest floor and stuck it between his teeth. "Besides, we're not all the way out here for things."

Jet fished a short stack of used parchment and a rod of graphite from one of his pockets, muttering incoherently as he smoothed out the wrinkles.

"When you joined the Freedom Fighters about a year ago," he said, handing the (only slightly) less disheveled stack to Smellerbee, "you told me that you could read and write."

"Yeah, so?"

Jet stopped to grab her shoulder, suddenly sincere. Longshot had turned around to face the pair, standing stoically at attention: he too was curious as to how Smellerbee's skill factored into his leader's "recon" plan.

"As we saw a couple of days ago, the Fire Nation has recently infiltrated further and further into Earth Kingdom territory," he recalled. "My hope is that, when this convoy settles down for the night, they might bring up some vital intel about future movements or outpost locations near Gaipan.

Once we catch up, I'm going to have you two approach on the ground: say, within about fifty paces of their gathering place. Longshot: since your hearing is good, I'm going to have you be the 'listener.' You'll communicate anything of interest to Bee, who will jot it down."

Longshot nodded, but he could tell that the girl was not yet satisfied.

"Where will you be, and what will you be doing?"

"Getting to that, Bee, but first I want to make it clear that you two will be watching each other's backs throughout the operation," he said. "We don't know what kind of security is gonna be lurking around, so stay on your toes and be prepared to retreat at any time. If you encounter any trouble, send out a birdcall and I'll do my best to get there, but because we are obviously at a tactical disadvantage for combat it would be best to avoid any trouble if at all possible.

When I see an opening, I'll go out on my own and see if I can't grab a couple of maps or anything useful I can find among the higher-up's belongings. Once the Ash-Makers have turned in for the night, we'll meet back here and return to the hideout."

He marked an 'X' into the ground with the heel of his boot, making a similar indentation in a nearby tree with his pocket knife.

"Are you two clear on my orders?"

Bee glanced at Longshot, seeking his confirmation.

She smirked. "Crystal."

* * *

**[A/N] I know, I know, took me long enough. Is anyone even still reading this thing? I'm getting pretty close to canon storyline convergence, so... yeah. Some Fire Nation eavesdropping just ahead on _Freedom and Folly_!**


	10. 7 Stakeout

**Stakeout **

Out of necessity, the rest of the trek in had been markedly silent. Not five minutes after their debriefing Longshot had heard the convoy approaching from the north, and the trio had taken to the trees. Soon enough the clanking of armor and the measured, monotonous _thump_ of regulation boots had drowned out the cicada-crickets, and the flickering light emanating from the soldiers' outstretched hands had painted the forest red. Smellerbee didn't need to confirm with a glimpse that Jet's face had contorted into a feral snarl: his grip on the _shuang gou_ had tightened enough to elicit a squeak from the hilts, and the swordswoman had sworn she'd heard the boy viciously grinding his teeth, the wheatgrass once between them chewed through long ago.

She and Longshot had then split off, noiselessly traversing the leafy landscape with practiced ease until, finally, the battalion had come within a reasonably audible range. They watched and waited as a troop of about three dozen soldiers settled nearby: one by one they shed their armor and abandoned their weapons, sighing contentedly as they stretched their limbs for the first time in what seemed like hours. Before long they had collected enough wood to start a campfire and, within minutes, had settled about it in a great circle and begun to sup.

The clanking of utensils and buzz of idle chatter were the perfect cover for the Freedom Fighters to descend from the trees and move closer still, shuffling from shrub to shrub until they were but a stone's throw away from the nearest soldier. Longshot nodded: this would be plenty close enough.

"Bloody _slave driver_, making us march through this muggy hellhole for twenty miles in one day—"

"Keep your mouth shut, Lang!" hissed his comrade. The archer peeked through the bushes: the speaker was tall and lean, and sported a particularly ugly tigerdillo tattoo on his left bicep. "If the Colonel hears you she'll make us all march another twenty miles by morning."

Without missing a beat, Bee withdrew the parchment and graphite from one of her pockets and sat beside Longshot, their knees nearly touching as they sat cross-legged around the heart of the shrub. Ugly Tigerdillo Tattoo had been loud enough so that even she could decipher his words, but— because the shadow cast by the wide brim of Longshot's hat had obscured all but his most prominent features—she was doubtful that she'd be able to read his face for the duration of the task.

Another voice piped up: this one seemed older, more knowing.

"I'll eat my boot if the Colonel isn't as tired as we are, son," he chuckled. "After all, she's been yelling at you young-uns to stay in formation all day."

The one named Lang scoffed. "Well, _Grandpa_, it's _your_ gazillion year-old prostate that made us have to get _out_ of formation and back so that you could piss every ten minutes. "

As the younger half of the group laughed, Smellerbee nudged her interpreter.

"What's a prostate? Do you think that's code for something?"

The way he bit his lip led the girl to believe that this was (a) something that likely wasn't coded and (b) probably a question better left for later.

"Guys, can we go _one night_ without comparing anatomy?"

A dark, muscular woman sauntered into the clearing, nearly knocking over Ugly Tigerdillo Tattoo as she plopped down next to the fire. She harnessed a small spark from the blaze and passed it effortlessly between her hands, her fingertips a brilliant, flickering red as she allowed the flame to dance.

"What, did you not have anything more constructive to say, or are you just afraid of offending a lady?"

"I'll say, Aza, you're sure _fiery_ tonight."

Another woman with a braid down her back joined her, a bowl of fresh rice and meat in hand. "Colonel Yi just turned in: she wanted me to let you all know that we should be all packed up and ready to leave by dawn. Said that if we continue at this pace then we should reach Yu Dao within the week."

Yu Dao…if Smellerbee remembered correctly, Yu Dao was a Fire Nation colony nestled within the coastal mountains of the western Earth Kingdom. Jet had told them about how it was one of the first cities appropriated by the Fire Nation after the Air Bender Genocide, and how the local Earth Kingdom citizens had been stripped of their power and titles and forced to work for wealthy Fire Nation defense contractors ever since.

Braid Lady turned to Prostate Grandpa, a smile gracing the corners of her lips. "You must be excited to get back to your daughter and grandson, old man! How old is Kuzo now?"

"His fourth birthday is at the end of the summer," he said, the lines of his face softening briefly. "Told him that we'd get back from the Si Wong in time to celebrate."

"Well, if we don't get hit by the spirit bandits first."

Longshot and Bee looked at each other, at least three eyebrows raised between the two of them: spirit bandits?

Aza scoffed. "_Honestly_, Lang, don't tell me that you believe in those children's stories. You'd sooner see some inbred abomination like the Earth King's pet bear wandering through the forest than a horde of demonic kleptos."

"I dunno," mused Braid Lady. "I was talking to Fu a few weeks ago back when he was stationed by the dam. Swore to Agni that he saw something in the trees lookin' right back at him."

" 'S probably a hogmonkey or something,"Aza retorted.

"Yeah, well this 'hogmonkey' was clothed, almost six feet tall, and had long, shiny claws that ended in hooks instead of arms. Not ten minutes after Fu saw it, an entire crate of food and some of the weapons in storage were reported missing."

Bee narrowed her eyes: unless some other vigilante with _shuang-gou_ was swinging around Gaipan, that had to have been Jet. It struck her as odd that Jet had been careless enough to have been spotted in the first place, but the fact that he had been by the dam…

"Some say," whispered Lang, "that they are angry spirits possessing the bodies of children that were killed by the Rough Rhinos in those raids. They've haunted these woods for years, stripping travellers and supply caravans of their wares whenever they pass through. A lot of people think that they're amassing an army to drive the Fire Nation out of Earth Kingdom territories."

"An army?" laughed Aza, "of _spirits_?! _Surely_ you recall from elementary lecture how Avatar Wan banished the spirits to the Spirit World some _ten thousand years_ ago?"

Braid Lady scratched her chin thoughtfully. "The Annals also detailed legends of portals connecting the physical and spiritual realms. Since the Avatar hasn't been seen in a hundred years, it's more than likely that the balance between the two worlds has been disrupted, which has in turn made it easier for spirits to immigrate here."

Longshot glanced at his partner, relieved to find that she looked just as incredulous as he felt. So, the Fire Nation thought that the Freedom Fighters were an army of rogue spirits…

"Hey, old man, what's eatin' ya? You haven't touched your food."

Braid Lady had taken notice of Prostate Grandpa's marked silence, shuffling closer to his body before placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Whether the legends're true or not," he muttered, almost in a whisper, "children still perished in those raids. When I think of Kuzo, I —"

"Yeah, well don't feel too badly," said Lang, stuffing noodles into his mouth. "Earth Kingdom children grow up into Earth Kingdom adults, and Earth Kingdom adults join militias and armies that kill us by the hundreds. For all you know one of those mud-flingers could have grown up to slay your grandson, and then where would you be, huh?"

The addressee sighed, gently nursing his tea before taking a quiet sip. "What if the war ended before such an encounter ever occurred? What if Kuzo didn't have to take my place on the battlefield when he becomes of age?"

Sensing Lang's heated retort bubbling to the surface, Braid Lady interjected. "Whether or not this war continues is out of our hands. I think we would all love nothing more than to pack up and return to our families right now, but our being here assures that Fire Nation emigrants in the colonies are safe and well supplied."

Longshot glanced at Bee, his realization apparent. This convoy wasn't here to destroy Earth Kingdom villages and colonize more land: if anything, it appeared as if they were struggling to maintain the _existing_ colonies. In that case, then, did it mean that the Earth Kingdom resistance had finally accumulated enough momentum in the past few years to challenge the Fire Nation occupation?

The girl tilted her head: if this convoy wasn't the only one assigned to defensive duties (and—given the size of Yu Dao—she highly doubted that it was), then there was reason to believe that the Fire Nation wasn't currently seeking conquest as aggressively as Jet had so vehemently insisted.

Though the information offered some sense of relief, Smellerbee couldn't help but bite her lip as she scratched a final character into the parchment.

_Doubt._

* * *

_[then]_

Her wrists were smarting again.

The girl hissed under her breath as she peeled away the first bandage, grimacing as the all-too-familiar odor of burnt flesh—_her_ burnt flesh—slithered its way into her nose. One of the blisters must have popped, for the wound was covered in a sticky sheen and _Spirits_ it was just so _awful_—

Had she eaten anything in the last day and a half she was sure she would have seen it again at that moment: the sight, and the smell, and the undulating waves of _pain_ were altogether just too much—

" 'Ey. Kid."

The tall boy with the shaggy hair—Jet, she reminded herself—had crawled up onto the platform beside her, lugging a sack of objects that clanked and sloshed as he set it down beside her.

"Sneers wanted me to drop this stuff off s'soon as you woke up," he explained, revealing a large, green bottle and a shallow clay bowl. "I'll be helping you with your bandages this morning."

She simply nodded, tracing the pattern of the wood grain in the floorboards with her eyes as Jet meticulously removed the remainder of the cloth. He held her fingers so gingerly that she couldn't suppress the faint blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, just as shocked by the gentleness of this seemingly rough and gritty young man as she was by the very idea of being cared for so attentively.

"Looks a bit better than it did yesterday," he reassured, removing the last of the cloth on her right wrist and moving to the left. "You're a real trooper, you know that, kid? You'll be up and about again in no time."

The way her head hung betrayed her doubt, but Jet—relentless as he was—attempted a different approach.

"I'm going out on a scouting mission with some of the guys later. We're gonna see if we can track down the monster that did this to you."

"Don't."

The boy looked on in disbelief: in the two days he'd known her, she hadn't uttered a single word until now. Jet certainly hadn't expected her voice to be as rough as it was, but the tone—one of practiced authority and perhaps even a dash of desperation—made it abundantly clear that he wasn't to disobey.

A pregnant silence passed before he piped up again.

"Why not?"

He had finished wrapping the left wrist, leading the limb gently back down to her side. The girl hugged her knees in close, her mouth set in a thin line.

"You'd be wasting your time," she muttered, barely audible over the faunal hum of the forest. "He's dead."

Jet's eyes went wide: before he could stop himself, his cool façade vanished.

"How-?"

"Everyone was distracted when you and the other boys dropped in from the trees. I grabbed a rock and struck him as hard as I could in the knee. When he fell over, I snatched a dagger from his belt and tried, and I tried to slit his throat, but my hands were shackled together and he had the chain and started to heat it with his bending and—"

Her voice wavered as she held back a sob, and her entire body seemed to shiver.

"I w-wasn't quick enough."

Jet thought he was going to be sick: her agonized scream had echoed in his head for days. He waited patiently for the girl to reclaim her composure, needing a moment himself to scour the memory from his immediate attention.

"The next thing I knew the bastard had an arrow in his neck, and he couldn't bend anymore," she continued, still shaken by the recollection. "I blacked out after that, and didn't come to until the big one with the log had already begun to carry me back here."

Jet recalled the behemoth's report rather clearly. "Pipsqueak said that you were pretty out of it."

"Given what had just happened, I'm kind of glad I was."

She chuckled mirthlessly, spitefully regarding her bandaged wrists.

"I'd like to thank him," she murmured, regarding the boy seriously once more, "and the marksman, too, when I get the chance. What's his name?"

The renegade smiled. "That would be Longshot," he replied, an edge of pride in his tone. "Pipsqueak said that he saw him run out from his cover to pick the lock on your shackles and carry you away from the fray. He watched over you until we managed to scare the Fire Nation scum away, and handed you over to Pip for the journey back."

It took the girl a moment to realize that her mouth had been hanging open: this kid that she didn't even know had risked his life to save hers.

"I know: pretty crazy, right?" he asked rhetorically, offering her a toothy grin.

"Do you guys do stuff like this all the time?" she countered, still incredulous.

Jet's smirk began to fade. "In a manner of speaking," he suggested cryptically, but then his expression became grave and his voice lowered so that it barely hovered above a whisper.

"A lot of us have suffered under the tyranny of Fire Nation. Their forces burned our homes to the ground and slaughtered our family and friends, leaving us for dead."

The girl's face hardened, and the wounds on her wrists seemed to flare and pulse. She bit her lip, clenching her fists so tightly that she felt the joints pop and crackle with the strain.

"You take in and train the survivors," she continued, following the obvious progression of Jet's exposition, "and organize raids and ambushes to incapacitate Fire Nation forces."

He nodded. "We do whatever we can to slow down their path of destruction."

For not the first time that day, the image of the black-tipped arrow piercing her captor's windpipe flashed through her mind. As horrible as it was, Jet's words—his untold insistence that the Firebender's fate had been deserved—had somehow made it feel less repulsive now than it did then.

Maybe—if she listened to him long enough—she'd be able to sleep through the night again.

"Count me in."

Jet tilted his head. "What do you—?"

"As soon as I'm better, I'll help you fight. Help you stop them from doing this to someone else."

He nodded, almost as if he had been expecting her answer, and smiled.

"Sounds good, kid," he laughed, "though, if you're gonna stick around for awhile, it'd sure be nice to know what to call you."

The girl smirked: is a strange place with strange people with strange names, it would fit perfectly.

"Call me Smellerbee."


	11. 8 Outspoken

**Outspoken**

* * *

**(TRIGGER WARNING: explicit abuse/violence against women later on in the chapter)**

* * *

_[now]_

The trio had remained almost completely silent during their return journey to the Freedom Fighter base. When they had finally arrived around mid-morning, Smellerbee and Longshot hadn't even waited for Jet's permission to return to their respective quarters, too tired to care if he scolded them later.

"I disagree."

Bee almost hadn't registered that her opinion had been deviating from Jet's until the words had involuntarily spilled out. Immediately the swordswoman felt five pairs of eyes snap into focus on her, but—as always—she was determined to continue.

A small faction of the Freedom Fighters (or, as it was more commonly referred to, 'The Core') had gathered not a day later to discuss the troop's most recent acquisitions. Before them lay several dog-eared maps of the region, each annotated and initialed in various ink colors as well as an unsigned, hastily scrawled letter that had been rolled up so tightly in one of the maps that Jet had failed to notice its presence when he had initially pilfered the documents. The meeting had carried on for the better part of an hour now, and they still hadn't reached a consensus based on their newest findings.

"Jet's plan is based on the assumption that the Fire Nation forces are continuing to take an offensive rather than a defensive approach to the captured bases and cities in the Earth Kingdom," she said, glancing down at the notes she had taken. "Based on what I heard and saw, it's not entirely out of the question that the Fire Nation army is concentrating their resources on protecting their _current_ holdings rather than reaching out to conquer others. If we do as you are suggesting, we may as well draw targets on our backs and invite both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation to come after us."

"And how would that be any different from before?" Jet snipped, exaggeratingly rubbing his temples. "We're certainly not welcome in Gaipan, and the ash-makers already destroy everything and everyone they see: besides, assuming that the Fire Nation army is planning to fall back based on evidence gathered from one convoy is suicide. Isn't it better that we eliminate the threat altogether instead of giving them a chance to fight back?"

"So you would have us rush into Gaipan and strike own all who oppose us?"

Jet seethed, but remained silent as Sneers piped up from his left.

"I don't agree with everything that Bee's put forth, but I stand with her regarding the plan of action against the Fire Nation forces in Gaipan. We don't have sufficient intel on the layout of the town to stage a well-coordinated assault, and would likely suffer significant casualties."

And even if we did manage to take Gaipan," mused Pipsqueak, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "the Fire Nation is organized enough to arrange for reinforcements to arrive within a few days, and all we will have done would have been for nothing."

"At this point, it just doesn't make sense to take the town back," said Skillet, her tone more gentle than her peers'. "It's best if we continue with our original plan and just try to periodically disrupt the supply trains that run through when we can."

Longshot sent Bee a pointed glance.

" 'Shot's with Skillet on that one, and wanted to bring up the importance of not drawing too much attention to ourselves out here."

He nodded, and Bee continued. "Our priority is to make sure that the younger Freedom Fighters are safe and well cared for, and we can't risk posing enough of a threat for the Fire Nation to specifically target us."

Jet huffed, chewing a stalk of wheatgrass thoughtfully as he glared at the girl. Ever since she'd joined the group about a year ago (and—under Skillet and Longhshot's insistence—been inaugurated as a member of the 'core' not long after), Smellerbee had made these meetings decidedly more…_difficult_. As much as he admired her spirit and tenacity, the fact that Bee had frequently used her natural gifts to take an approach contrary to his own had subtly begun to undermine his authority: it went without saying that the blind, unquestioning loyalty he had once commanded from his peers had begun to slip.

"Very well," he muttered, forcing a placated smirk. "We will refrain from drastic action for the time being. I will, however, suggest that we send out some more feelers to get a better idea of our current situation. Skillet, do you have any suggestions for who we can deploy to Gaipan to gather some more intel?"

Sneers opened his mouth to protest, but Skillet—as was her way—beat him to the punch.

"Klepfretter seems like the best option for something of that sort," she concluded, "but I would be much more comfortable if I could accompany her as a part of her cover. Something tells me that just one kid wandering in and out of the city as small as Gaipan is going to be noticed, but no one should suspect two refugee siblings taking a brief respite."

Jet allowed the plan to stew in his mind for a moment, and found himself nodding in assent. He almost laughed when he caught sight of the scout: Sneers looked like he was attempting to physically restrain an aghast cry of protest, but—seeing that no one else seemed to share his sentiments—decided instead to emit an audible, defeated huff.

"It looks like Klepfretter is gonna have the last word on this one," resolved the leader, smiling despite himself. "Just keep me updated on things, Skillet: we'll see if we can't get you two deployed in the next week."

Though he felt it futile to even suggest that they had more plans to discuss, Jet began to close the meeting with an almost habitual formality.

"Well, is there anything else? No?" _Like we could even agree on a proactive plan right now, anyway. _

Silence and shrugs.

"All right, dismissed."

As the creaking of joints and rough wooden floors mingled with subdued voices, Jet wormed his way over to Smellerbee, tapping the girl on the shoulder. He whispered something in her ear before returning to the table to reassemble the collection of maps and letters, taking care to make sure that everyone but he and the swordswoman had filed out before he met her questioning gaze.

She fidgeted, picking at the frayed fabric of the bandage on her left wrist as her eyes narrowed in suspicion. What could Jet possibly need from her that couldn't be discussed in front of the entire group?

"Whet do you want?" she muttered, barely allowing the respect she held for him to show through her tone. Smellerbee exhaled in only partial exasperation before she allowed her body to fall against the threshold, arms expectantly crossed.

"Cutting right to the chase, are we?" he picked, chuckling under his breath. "Got somewhere to be?"

"Yeah, the mess hall: I'm fucking starving."

" 'Kay, got your point: I'll be quick," Jet said as his own stomach loudly sympathized. "Just go over one bit of your notes with me one last time: you know, the bit about the spirits."

Bee narrowed her eyes, fetching the hand-scrawled parchment from one of her pockets and scanning for the desired section.

"It sounded like the ash-makers thought that all the stuff we did was caused by rogue spirits," she reviewed, raising an eyebrow. "What about that wasn't clear to you?"

"Oh, it was perfectly clear: but, you know, it got me thinking. You mentioned that one of the pitfalls of my original plan was that we'd suddenly have members of two national armies nipping at our heels if we engaged directly."

She shrugged. "Well, among other things, yes. What's your po—"

In that instant her eyes brightened in epiphany, only to narrow again in derision. This was absolute madness.

"Jet, that's _insane_! How on _earth_ would we even go about convincing people that the Freedom Fighters are a friggin' _spirit army_—?"

"They already _do_, Bee: that's the whole point! What hope can they possibly have of mounting a successful retaliation if they think that their opponents are all-powerful spirits, huh? All we gotta do is make sure that the rumors stick and we'll totally be left alone: no one in their right mind'll ever come through this section of the forest again!"

An unmistakable twinkle shone in Jet's eyes, and Bee repressed a groan: if her leader's tendency to obsess held true, then he'd be neck-deep in plans and schematics within the hour. There was no dragging him back from this one.

She sighed, resigned as she turned to face the threshold. "Fine. If you're gonna ignore my input, then I'll just leave here to you to your scheming. I don't know why I even bother…"

Smellerbee refused to hear his protests as she strolled out, her heavy footfalls shaking the rickety foundations of the platform upon her exit.

* * *

_[then]_

"Useless, stupid whore!" _Smack._

Mífung nearly dropped her basket of moon peaches, cringing as a woman's cry echoed down the alleyway. Despite her better judgment the girl set her wares down and peered about the corner, raising a hand above her eyes to shield out the blinding sun.

She gasped: a woman—barely a few years older than herself—lay crumpled against the cobblestones, quivering and whimpering in the dirt and filth as the man's form loomed over her, a pair of meaty fists clenched against his sides. Out of the corner of her eye Mífung spotted a boy peering down from a windowsill two stories up: he had obviously also heard the commotion.

"You tryna leave without my say, bitch?!" he spat, hoisting her struggling form up by the hair before forcing her back down into the ground again. "You _belong _to me. You do as I say, you fuck who I say you fuck, or you don't get whatcha _need_."

"_P-please_, Tan, I can't –"

"Shut UP!"

The words died on her lips as the man landed a swift kick to her ribs. Her begging, her sobs, her struggle to draw air into her lungs: it turned Mífung's blood to ice.

Another woman—the boy's mother, it seemed—had joined him, her height allowing for an unobstructed view of the alleyway. She covered her mouth and ushered the child's gaze away, her own eyes never leaving the scene beneath her.

Mífung pursed her lips: why wasn't the woman _doing_ anything? Why wasn't she calling for help, or telling the bad man to go away?

Why wasn't _she_ doing anything?

This—this was _wrong_.

A feeling she'd never experienced before awoke in the pit of her stomach: a searing, white-hot bead of fury, clenching her heart and her guts and squeezing and writhing and _ripping_ and lightning itself coursed through her limbs and every muscle and vein and bone rattled within her and _ached_ for action, for reflex, for—

Her groceries forgotten, Mífung stormed around the corner, aiming the meanest glare she could muster in the man's direction. She startled herself with the conviction her words carried, even as they spewed forth from her throat and seemed to cause the cobblestones themselves to tremble as they echoed down the narrow walkway.

"Leave. Her. Alone."

For a fraction of a second the man's form tensed, but his caution dissipated almost immediately as he realized his critic barely reached half his height and a quarter his girth.

He chuckled, wiping his filthy hands on his equally filthy pants as he scanned her wiry, quivering body.

"Or _what_? You gonna tear me a new one, little girl? You gonna tell my mommy?"

"If your mother hadn't died of shame when she realized how low you'd stooped, I'm sure she would've appreciated the memo!"

The man's face boiled at her insinuation, but she didn't stop.

"Hitting a defenseless woman must make you feel real _powerful_, doesn't it?"

He lunged at her, spewing a slew of curses and insults as he reached for her throat and clamped down, hoisting the struggling girl into the air until her eye level was equal with his. His lips moved, yet no sound came out: her world had fallen into silence, and before she knew it she had relinquished control of her legs, her arms, her hands clawing away at his grip around her throat; her eyes, her eyes, bulged and erratic, unable to focus, the corners of her vision plunging into darkness, going, going, a bruised and bloodied face with features so like her own pulled into the cobble by formless fingers, down, down, _down_ –

"NINI!"

Mífung gulped for air, her knuckles white as they gripped the sweat-soaked sheets beneath her. The clarity with which her senses returned was enough to send her reeling, and for a moment the girl was sure she'd be sick and proceeded to prepare accordingly, rushing to the lavatory adjacent to her bedroom in anticipation of the worst.

Though she managed to keep her dinner down, Mífung almost wished that she hadn't: the noodles she'd eaten seemed to writhe in her gut like restless snakes, twisting in agony as they perished in her acid and bile.

A quiet, yet decidedly urgent knock on her bedroom door stirred the girl from her thoughts. She'd barely finished undoing the lock when Ninta-i tumbled in, wrapping her lithe arms tightly about Mífung's bony shoulders.

"Oh, Mimi, I was so worried!" she gasped, breaking their embrace as soon as she'd noticed the stiffness of the girl's posture. "You sounded so scared just now: what's going on, hon?"

"Nightmare," she deadpanned, refusing to meet her sister's gaze even as the young woman looked upon her with obvious consternation. "I'm sorry if I woke you—"

"No, no, Mimi, there's no need to be sorry. I wasn't sleeping particularly well, either."

Mífung had moved to the bed, motioning for her sister to follow. "Something bothering you?"

The elder girl sighed, her eyebrows knit in consternation as she joined her on the mattress.

"Right after dinner, I heard Auntie Jin talking with mom. She—she said that a girl had been beaten to death in an alley down by the marketplace."

Mífung felt a lump bubbling up inside her throat. The act of concentrating on the lie brewing in her head was the only thing keeping her from bursting into tears.

She lay down, and Ninta-i gingerly stroked her hair. Mífung was sure her sister had gone on to briefly elaborate on the circumstances, but it all went in one ear and out the other: all she could hear, all she could see, was that bloodied and battered girl crumpled in a pitiful heap, begging for help that would never come.

"I know, Nini: I heard her, too."

* * *

_[A/N: Mífung ("Mimi") is Smellerbee before she was a Freedom Fighter, in case you didn't pick up on that from previous chapters. Ninta-i ("Nini") is her older sister._

_Erg, that was an emotionally difficult chapter to write. I'm not entirely happy with it, either, but I guess what I wanted to convey is that this traumatic experience has driven Bee to become more vocal and outspoken about what she believes isn't right. Despite the fact that she has become more outspoken, however, she still struggles with establishing credibility in her peers' eyes (largely because of her sex, but I'll go more into that later on)._

_Thanks for reading: I'd really appreciate a review!]_


	12. 9 Slipping

**Slipping**

_[now]_

The late afternoon sun streamed through the leaves, casting patches of rich, dappled light that danced along the riverbank in a kaleidoscopic flurry as the canopy rustled above. Longshot sighed: the breeze was a welcome—albeit brief—respite from the unforgiving humidity that stuck to his clothes and dampened his brow, but it didn't even compare to the relief he'd feel once he shed his clothes and plunged into the cool, watery depths.

There was just one problem.

"I can't _believe_ that Jet thinks that this is feasible!" Smellerbee roared, digging her fingers into her scalp as she lathered and blathered away. "The whole point of spirits is that they do things that mortal entities can't! I mean, what does he _expect_ us to do, pull over the next spirit we find and ask them to help us scare the shit out of a bunch of well-trained soldiers?!"

After their post-conference meal, the swordswoman had been ranting for the better part of an hour about the plan that Jet had shared with her. Naturally, her tirade had extended to occupy the time slots for their weekly baths, and Longshot's selective mutism was making it rather difficult to engage in a conversation when he was trying to maintain some modesty.

The archer allowed his arms to fall at his sides: hell if _he_ knew how Jet was going to find—let alone convince—one of the ethereal beings to assist on their endeavors. That one Fire Nation soldier at the stakeout had been right: The First Avatar's separation of the material and spirit worlds almost ten thousand years ago had limited the interactions between the two realms' denizens, and it's not like the current Avatar was around to mediate them.

"You know that won't stop Jet, though," Bee muttered, rinsing out the suds with a quick submersion. "You know how he gets: he'll march into the Spirit World himself if he has to."

Longshot heard her swim to the bank and pull herself out of the water. The bushes rustled as she snatched the tattered towel she'd suspended there, wrapping it tightly around her body before she placed the bar of soap in his hand.

"S' all yours," Bee chimed, averting her eyes as the boy began pulling off his tunic. After some rustling and a splash she about-faced, plopping herself down on the forest floor a few paces from the bank. As expected, Longshot was already chest-deep in the river, dutifully scrubbing away at his clothes. The girl couldn't help but notice that he seemed more pensive than usual: she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but the solemn mask her friend had donned had effectively made him as silent to her as he seemed to everyone else.

The relative quiet that followed wasn't something that Smellerbee would have called uncomfortable—Longshot wasn't the kind of person to carry on a conversation regardless of whether one or both parties were potentially (or very near) naked—but it did strike her as something that was becoming increasingly less novel in the past few weeks. In the time that she'd been with the Freedom Fighters the archer had always offered her an eager ear, and was more than inclined to contribute in his own way if he so pleased.

And so they talked. They'd engage in futile banter over whether the shortbow or the khukri was a superior weapon, or gossip about the silly things that the younger kids did when Skillet hadn't been paying close enough attention, or place bets on how many apples Klepfretter managed to swindle from the stores before Piper tattled on her, and now – for what seemed like the millionth time—they'd expressed their concerns over the obsessive nature by which Jet plotted and schemed his revenge against the Fire Nation.

Out of all of the Freedom Fighters, their leader was—without a doubt—the one that hated the Fire Nation the most, and he took every opportunity he could to convince the others that they were deserving of the horrible fates he'd concocted for them; that the world would be a better place of they were wiped out like the Air Nomads had been a hundred years ago. Jet had channeled all of his grief, all of his passion; all of his will into hating firebenders, and that hatred had crackled and seared and pulsed with the very force of his life and, at times, it had consumed him whole.

Longshot sighed: Bee had only been with the Freedom Fighters for a little over a year, but that time had been sufficient to demonstrate just how quickly Jet was slipping. Had he himself not known any better, the archer wouldn't have guessed that the headstrong, righteous boy he'd met three and a half years ago and the wrathful, contemptuous young man they knew now were one and the same.

As he gave his trousers a final wring and slung them on an overhanging branch to dry, Longshot briefly wondered if he, too, had changed for the worse.

But his ponderings weren't brief or private enough, because before he knew it Bee had slapped the surface of the water and delivered an admonishing splash.

The swordswoman's nose scrunched as she glared at him: without her usual kohl and red stripes, the menace she usually bore was subdued just enough that she almost seemed personally insulted by his insinuation. He attempted to feign ignorance with a shrug and a tilt of the head, but she'd known him too long and too well to fall for his bluff.

"Don't—don't even _think_ things like that, Longshot. You know that's not true."

Her voice was barely above a whisper, but her eyes, her eyes bore into him like the daggers she carried, just _daring_ him to disagree with her.

He did just that as their eye contact broke, instead focusing on his ripple-distorted reflection on the water's glassy surface.

He'd fully expected her to smack him, splash him, for Spirits' sake just _yell_ at him, but to Longshot's surprise her expression almost seemed to soften. The conviction of her voice, however, failed to falter as she began to address him once more.

"What Jet has inside of him, that _darkness_? It's—it's like a disease. It plants these awful thoughts into his head that he can't turn off, it makes him relive the agony of his loss over and over again; it deludes him into the idea that by erasing what he believes to be the source of his pain, everything will just go away.

When I look at Jet, I see someone that is a slave to their demons: I know that it's not his fault, and I beat myself up every frickin' day because there's nothing that I can do about it, but his _choice_ to use hatred to motivate his actions was—and continues to be— his and his alone.

I won't deny that you've suffered too, Longshot, and won't disregard the fact that what the Fire Nation did to you is one of the reasons that you fight with the rest of us. But what you fight _for_, and how you fight for it is what sets you and Jet apart.

I see _you_, Longshot, and… and I see someone that works hard every day to outshine that darkness. I see you, and I see someone who fights with the expectation—with the _hope_—that they'll be around to enjoy the peace that they bring about."

A faint smile graced her lips, and for an instant the archer thought that his heart had leaped into his throat: he swallowed, dumbfounded, struggling to put a name to the sensation of every vein and capillary in his body pulsing with a warmth that had nothing to do the ambient temperature, but before he knew it Bee had abruptly sobered and was doing her best to cover the blush creeping up her neck.

"Ah, sorry," she mumbled, apparently transfixed by her own twiddling thumbs. "Here I am, going on and on about nothing when you probably just wanna take your bath in peace. I, uh, I guess I'll see you at dinner, mmkay? I'll save you a seat n' everything."

Before Longshot could remind her to pick up the rest of her dry clothes from the line Smellerbee had vanished, but the warmth her words had lent him seemed to linger on the surface of the water, swirling and churning with forces he didn't quite understand.

* * *

There was _definitely_ something fishy going on.

Jet had intended to slip into the galley, grab a bowl of gumbo, and slip right out again to get back to work on his newest set of plans, but something peculiar had caught his eye.

Longshot was smiling.

It wasn't as if he'd never seen the archer smile before: he'd observed the occasion at least a few times in the last three years or so. Of course, it was almost always when he thought that no one was looking, but he was doing nothing to mask it now. Jet briefly wondered if his comrade even realized that he had deviated from his default stoicism, but he _had_ to have known: he was _Longshot_, dammit, in all his inhuman self-control and precision and not-a-hair-out-of-place-ness, there was _no way_ he wasn't aware of how frickin' dopey he looked right now.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Smellerbee approach their usual spot with two near-overflowing bowls of stew, chattering all the while about how her clothes still smelled like sweat and metal polish despite having just washed them that day, and as he always did Longshot listened intently, nodding at all the right times and knowing just what to 'say' when her own words ran out. She plopped down in front of him, their knees nearly touching as they faced one another cross-legged on the platform, offering the archer his portion with a casual grace Jet knew she was putting at least a _little_ bit of effort into. He took it graciously, though Jet could have _sworn_ that he saw Longshot's fingers bashfully brush over hers as she passed the bowl into his hands. Bee stumbled—albeit subtly—over whatever she had been muttering, but within seconds the two were supping in relative silence as if nothing had happened.

But Longshot was still smiling.

The leader twirled the wheatgrass between his teeth, bemused. Had they always been this cushy with one another, or were they—or were they—

Nah. They couldn't be _flirting_. They'd had a good training day, or seen someone do something hilariously stupid: he was even willing to bet that one or both of them had maybe had a little something-something to drink, but _flirting_? _Those two_?

But his musings were short-lived: out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arrow seek his gaze. The kid was out of breath, with something akin to shock and wonder in his eyes. If the number of small scrapes on his legs and the quantity of twigs and leaves embedded in his hair were any indication, he'd just run a pretty sizable distance in a very short amount of time.

"Jet," he panted, his voice alight with excitement, "I bring news from Klepfretter and Skillet in Gaipan. The Avatar is alive, and is rumored to be traveling through the Earth Kingdom as we speak."


	13. 10 Risk, Pt 1

**Risk (Part I/II)**

**[A/N: Just as a warning, there's a hunting/butchering scene near the middle of this chapter.]**

The next few weeks seemed to pass in a blur: the balmy desert winds yielded to the cool, dry gusts from the north as summer became autumn, serving to remind everyone that the season when Firebenders were their weakest was fast approaching. News of the Avatar's emergence in the Southern Water Tribe—and the subsequent hijinks that ensued when the banished Fire Nation prince had attempted to capture him—had lent an extra spring in the steps in many of the Freedom Fighters. Where many had once been dubious of their ability to play a significant role in the tide of the war, the amount of panic that a twelve year-old Airbender and his two Water Tribe companions had been able to incite among the Fire Nation contingent in Gaipan had spurred the vagabonds to tackle their tasks with renewed tenacity and spirit.

Within the week Jet—having worked himself into a sleepless, manic frenzy—had completely reconfigured the troop's approach with regard to Fire Nation confrontation: raids became opportunistic and impromptu, focusing on small groups and individuals that were easily manipulated into believe that their attackers had been more than children in mismatched armor. Klepfretter and Skillet had remained in Gaipan, and reported that Fire Nation colonials and local Earth kingdom subjects alike had been weaving all sorts of tall tales about angry spirits that haunted the woods.

Even Smellerbee—paranoid as she was—found herself more partial to Jet's rather extreme tactics within this miraculous context, and as such found herself assuming increasingly vital roles in Jet's plans as the days began to shorten. Before she knew it, the swordswoman had gone from begrudgingly assisting the other Freedom Fighters in making their war paint as menacing as possible to orchestrating the expansion of the main base's patrol perimeter. Needless to say, there was hardly a waking moment in the day when she wasn't occupied with one or more of a mountain of tasks Jet had assigned her, but she wasn't complaining: being busy and useful was a welcome comfort in a world of uncertainty, and her fatigue at the end of the day only served to make the few hours' sleep she'd get that much deeper.

About two weeks after the initial news of the Avatar's emergence from the iceberg, Jet had assigned she and Longshot gathering duties. Naturally, the pair had been more than ready to take a break from their more menial tasks at the base, and welcomed the opportunity for a respite from its increasingly frequent bustle.

They'd set off early that morning at the cusp of dawn, the light of the full moon guiding their way to the more remote regions of the forest by the grasslands. The archer kept two arrows slotted between his fingers and his bow at the ready as he surveyed the sea of trees and shrubs before him, Bee never too far behind him with one throwing dagger in her hands and another in her teeth. They remained silent and vigilant, weapons at the ready and always cognizant of the nearest climbable tree: after all, the last thing either of them needed was a face full of boarcupine quills or to be gored by an aggressive cat-deer.

After almost an hour, their patience paid off: about twenty meters to their left a twig snapped, and a young buck exploded from the underbrush, taking off like a rocket towards the river. Without missing a beat, Longshot nocked both arrows and let them fly, exhaling as the familiar sensation of the fletching left his fingers. The creature stumbled, a shaft in its flank, and the swordswoman darted forward, ending its life instantly with a swift flick of her blade.

By the time Longshot reached her less than a minute later, she had already offered a silent thanks to the Spirits and, checking once more to ensure that the creature was dead, stuffed her gloves into her pockets and began to make the initial cut along the animal's abdomen.

"Watch your boots," she muttered dryly, not looking up from her work as her partner's near-silent footfalls drew nearer. "I always forget how much blood these things have."

Longshot grimaced, but drew a blade from a pocket in his quiver and moved to separate one of the legs and extract the arrow. Before he could so much as make a cut, however, Smellerbee shook her head.

"No need to soil your arm wrappings, 'Shot," she quipped. "I know you just cleaned them yesterday. I'll be done in twenty minutes."

He raised an eyebrow, feigning offense, but the girl just chuckled. She almost paused, though, when a sideways glance revealed that he had allowed his forearm guard to drop to the forest floor. Another glimpse confirmed that he had begun to unwind the linens, wrapping them about his calloused hand in a loose loop.

Smellerbee swallowed, nearly slicing off her pinkie as she separated the cat-deer's muscle from the ribcage: now that she thought about it, she'd never seen the archer _without_ them, but that hadn't kept Jet from confirming her suspicions as to why Longshot kept the majority of his arms, wrists, and hands covered.

Even in the dim light of the early day, the girl could discern that certain areas were rougher and shinier than others. Rivulets of angry red and white marred his creamy, pale skin at the elbows, snaking about the ventral surface to encircle the wrists and splash across the palms. The tautness made it appear almost brittle: surely too fragile to grip a bow; prone to smarting if it even glanced bark or dirt. To flex the fingers; to roll the wrist: _Spirits_, to pull that bowstring back time and time again…

It had to be agony.

If he'd noticed her staring, Longshot didn't indicate as much: before long he was elbow-deep in the carcass with her, pulling back the organs as she swiftly made the necessary cuts. Over the next few minutes they completed their work in silence, drawing and quartering the meat into manageable portions before stuffing them into the canvas sacks they'd brought along with them for the trip.

With about forty pounds of meat between the two of them, the pair left the rest for the scavengers and set off towards the river to wash their hands and instruments. The water was cold, and didn't quite succeed in removing all of the blood and mesentery from beneath their fingernails, but it was a welcome opportunity nonetheless. Smellerbee said nothing as her friend re-wrapped his arms, the movements well rehearsed and near mechanical as his marred skin vanished beneath the linens.

* * *

The sun had been above the horizon for less than an hour when the pair began to make their way back to the base, their spoils haphazardly slung over their hunched shoulders as they traced the familiar route. The adrenaline rush of the hunt had long since worn off, and all they wanted to do was hand off the kill to Whiplash and sneak off to get some sleep before Jet could assign them any more tasks.

As tired as he was, though, Longshot couldn't help but dwell on the way Bee had looked at him when he'd stepped in to help her gut the cat-deer. He honestly hadn't expected her to be that affected: after all, she'd seen far worse, and surely it wasn't a mystery that he kept his arms covered for a reason. And, even now, the way she bit her lip and focused on the toes of her boots told him that something was rolling around on her tongue, and that she was putting much more effort into avoiding the subject than she was used to.

If she was going to be weird about it, he conceded, then maybe he could get them to focus on something else for a bit.

Ten minutes later—when they approached the half mile marker between themselves and the hideout—the archer inclined his head toward a thicket he'd spotted earlier that morning. If previous years were any indication, then the shrubs there would be loaded with sweet berries, and he was pretty sure that Bee had another sack on her person for such opportunities.

"Yeah, hopefully the hogmonkeys haven't taken all of 'em yet," she muttered, pulling the crumpled drawstring bag from one of her pockets. "I've been craving that stuff that Skillet makes with them: what did she call it? Matchee? Moki?"

Longshot shrugged, gesturing to take her load of their kill. Whatever it was called, they wouldn't be getting much of it if she was lugging around an extra twenty pounds as she browsed the bushes. He'd stay close and keep watch over their spoils.

"No complaints here," she chuckled, rubbing her hands together as she disappeared into the brush. The swordswoman elicited a low whistle at the bountiful crop around her: there had to be hundreds of berries just within an arm's reach! She plucked a few, rubbing them on her shirt before popping them into her mouth. She savored the sweet, flavorful juice as it burst across her tongue: they were _just_ the right ripeness for eating.

"Longshot, you've gotta try these," she half-moaned, picking a small handful to bring back to her silent friend. She remained with him just long enough to see an approving grin spread across his face before she headed back into the thicket for more.

As expected, the bag became full relatively quickly: before long, Smellerbee supposed she had enough of the fruit for everyone at the hideout to have at least a handful or two. If she recalled correctly, tonight would be the first meal in more than a month that they'd be able to have something other than stew and rice.

She laughed as she made her way back to where Longshot was waiting for her, the spoils slung over her shoulder. "We gotta keep these away from Jet. Spirits know he'll try to make moonshine or some other toxic shi—"

_Snap._

Both of them froze, still not able to see one another too clearly through the brush, but the timbre was indication enough that whatever branch had just broken was far too thick for either of them to have snapped so easily on their own. No: whatever had made that noise had to be at least four or five times larger, and it was already much too close for either of them to be comfortable. Longshot fumbled for his bow, hands shaking as he reached behind his shoulder for an arrow.

His blood turned to ice when his hands met air.

In the half second it took the archer to remember that he had set the quiver down to stretch out his back, Smellerbee had burst from the thicket, her eyes wide with fright as a massive paw groped from somewhere within the bushes. The creature's low, feral growl shook their very bones, and it was all the girl could do to push herself forward and hope that her friend had been better prepared than herself to take on an eight hundred-pound platypus-bear: she knew her short-range daggers stood little chance against the creature's saber-sharp teeth and wicked claws.

When he'd finally managed to nock an arrow and gather his bearings, the cacophony of rapid footfalls, snapping twigs, and labored breaths had drawn even closer. Longshot cursed under his breath: they were close, but the thick underbrush and low light making it damn near impossible to pinpoint their exact position. Panic washed over him: if he let his arrow loose now, he ran the risk of hitting her.

Seeming to sense this, Smellerbee urged him on.

"IT'S TOO CLOSE!" she yelled, wincing as a particularly spry branch whipped back and grazed her cheek. The platypus-bear couldn't have been more than five yards away from her now, and was gaining fast. "MAKE THE SHOT, DAMMIT!"

The archer exhaled a shaky breath, and did as she asked.


	14. 10 Risk, Pt 2

**Risk (Part II/II)**

_"__IT'S TOO CLOSE!" she yelled, wincing as a particularly spry branch whipped back and grazed her cheek. The platypus-bear couldn't have been more than five yards away from her now, and was gaining fast. "MAKE THE SHOT, DAMMIT!"_

_The archer exhaled a shaky breath, and did as she asked._

* * *

A guttural roar of pain echoed his arrow, but it didn't matter: her cry had been unmistakable. Longshot felt as if his insides had been tugged from his belly and pulled straight into the ground: it rooted him to the spot, rendering him frozen in fear and horror at what he had done, not quite processing the sound of his own voice as his lips formed her name, and by then he had thrown his bow to the ground and risen to his feet again, ignoring the strain in his legs as they took him forward on the arrow's path.

It took a split second—one agonizing, heart-stopping second—for Longshot to realize that the fresh pool of blood he'd nearly stepped in wasn't hers.

"O-over here," Bee rasped, giving the bush she'd hidden behind a quick shake to alert her friend of her presence. Within seconds he reached her, crouched and clutching her left tricep in her right hand.

Beads of blood erupted from small scratches on her cheeks, and bits of twigs and leaves protruded from her hair from every which way. Her chest still heaved with effort and she took far longer than usual to resume her full height, but a quick glance didn't seem to suggest that anything was broken. But that gash on her arm—

"I'm _fine_, Longshot," Bee sighed, using the hand that had been clutching her arm to wipe some stray bangs from her forehead. "The arrow just grazed me; it's only a scratch."

She pressed her palm to the wound, obscuring a fresh, clean tear in the sleeve. "Just give it a second to stop bleeding, and we can—Longshot?"

Despite that his hands were still shaking, the archer managed to pull out a small knife and fashion a relatively even strip of cloth from the red kerchief tied around his shoulders. Bee squinted, turning her head a fraction: he cherished that old thing, and it's not like she was going to bleed to death on the spot if they didn't wrap her arm up right that second.

Nevertheless, she complied when he asked for her arm and wrapped the tattered red fabric around it. She winced as he secured a knot over the wound, but the way his fingers lingered just longer than was necessary was enough for her to momentarily forget her pain and assess her friend's condition.

While his downcast eyes betrayed nothing, Longshot's tattered tunic and quivering limbs spoke for themselves: he'd torn through those thorny brambles as if the platypus-bear had instead been chasing after him, and multiple tears and punctures now perforated his garments. The physical exertion of sprinting after her still clung to a phantom of existence through shallow, silent breaths, his hands twisting and writhing as if tying invisible knots.

Smellerbee clapped his shoulder, being sure to avoid any fresh cuts.

"Hey, 'Shot," she murmured, tilting her head again to get a better look at his face. "You—you okay?"

She expected him to at least _try_ to lie with a curt nod but, even as she gave him an encouraging pat, he remained as still as ever.

The girl sighed, pursing her lips as the words began to churn about in her head again. Internally, she scoffed: when had it gotten so damn hard to just _talk_—

Bee opened her mouth, prepared to let loose a stream of empty questions and reassurances; anything, _anything_ to fill the deafening silence but, in an instant, the light pressure on her shoulders and back; the familiar and yet incredibly alien sensation of being this close to another human being…

Was—was Longshot _hugging_ her?

But Longshot didn't _hug_. He hardly laughed, smiled, or did anything even remotely sentimental for that matter, and didn't even touch any of the other Freedom Fighters unless he was trying to get their attention.

Even so, this didn't occur to her as something strange or awkward. It was… nice. Warm. Safe.

She closed her eyes, pressing a cheek and an ear to his sternum as muscle memory guided her twiggy arms around his waist. The stench of their sweat wrinkled her nose, and she could feel his entire body throb as a heavy pulse worked its way through him with each successive heartbeat. The archer's breath, though quiet, was haggard and worn, and her scalp warmed ever so slightly where he exhaled against her hair.

"Thanks for having my back, Longshot," she whispered, giving her friend a final squeeze before they separated. For a moment he seemed almost bashful, stuffing his hands into his pockets and refusing to meet her eyes, but an inclination of her head snapped him back to his usual stoicism.

"Hey, about earlier…"

She rubbed her arms for emphasis, and he nodded curtly.

The burns.

"You know that I, I don't think of you any differently because of that, right? I mean, it's none of my business and my opinion doesn't matter, and you probably don't like talking about it, I mean, any more than you like talking about other things because you don't talk—ergh, uh. Yeah. You know what I mean."

Bee cleared her throat, silently cursing herself for her verbal clumsiness. Why couldn't she just spit it out? _Ugh_, he was gonna _hate _her now, if he didn't already for all the stupid shit she'd done in the last year. Oh, sweet _Spirits_—what if every time he looked at her he'd think of the time she'd nearly thrown up on his boots in that burned-down village a few weeks back, or when she'd been crying and bleeding and cussing and _pathetic_ when the Freedom Fighters had rescued her, or —Koh's _balls_— that time she'd been so obsessed with earning Jet's respect that she'd taken that dare and _kissed him on the mouth_ in front of everyone (and, dare she say, _liked_ it and still thought about it on a regular basis)?

Finding herself suddenly feeling very small (and wanting to be smaller still), Smellerbee almost missed the veiled jubilance in his crinkled eyes, the way his chest was spasming in short bursts—

She smacked his shoulder, squinting as a burning blush blossomed on the bridge of her nose.

"Don't—don't _laugh_ at me, asshole!" she spat, but the relief in her voice didn't lend itself into helping her seem even remotely threatening and, naturally, she had begun to laugh as well. "I'm tryna _apologize_ here!"

The archer shook his head, smiling quietly. Was it even a question that he forgave her? She was his best friend, after all.

Smellerbee beamed despite herself as the blush spread to her ears.

"Well, I'm glad _that's_ resolved," she chirped, gesturing towards the fresh platypus-bear carcass a few yards over, "because now we gotta figure out how to lug this thing back to base."

* * *

Needless to say, the Freedom Fighters feasted very well that night: after Smellerbee and Longshot had returned with the cat-deer they'd caught earlier that day and reported to Jet, they'd directed Arrow and a few others to the larger felled beast they'd decided to leave behind. About two hundred pounds of the creature had since been strung up to smoke for the winter stores, and the rest had been portioned off for the troop to consume over the next few days. Skillet and Cookie were in the kitchen for hours, emerging later that night bearing gallons upon gallons of hearty, meaty stew and enough skewered satay to feed all of Gaipan. Even Jet had emerged from his office to partake in the festivities, and rumor had it that he'd be giving the younger Freedom Fighters a dramatic retelling of the origins of their dinner.

As soon as he was sure that everyone had food on their plate, Jet assumed his usual place on the top of the main table, commanding the group's attention within seconds.

"Freedom Fighters!" he boomed, raising a mug of Fire Nation gin in one hand as he twirled a stalk of wheatgrass in the other, "Tonight, we thank the Spirits for gracing us with these bountiful spoils. As many of you already know, however, this meal wasn't brought to us by the Spirits alone."

"Our friends Longshot and Smellerbee set out this morning with every intention of bringing home something to hold all of us over for the next night or two," he recounted, holding up his plate. "But Skillet has informed me that what you see here—this food that graces your plates, and the great beast from which it came—is expected to keep our evening stew hearty for the next fortnight to come!"

The troop cheered, raising their libations (or, in some cases, their satay skewers). Jet gestured towards the breadwinners, waiting only a moment for the crowd to die down once more.

"Now, if the scratches and bruises our friends now bear from the day's hardships are any indication," he continued, "this meal did not come easily. Of course, everyone here who has been on hunting duty before understands the risks involved. Thankfully, we have been lucky enough in the past few months that relatively few of these risks have come to fruition, but today, today Bee and 'Shot were put to the test."

"Tired and worn from their previous spoils, our friends were journeying home when, out of the blue, a monstrous platypus-bear the weight and girth of five grown men emerged from the bushes and made chase! Realizing that her daggers stood no chance against the creature, Smellerbee called to her friend to fell the beast from afar but, alas, the forest was too thick for Longshot to see both his comrade and their target as they raced through the underbrush. Just as the animal was about to rip poor Bee to shreds, Longshot took a leap of faith and fired his arrow, striking the platypus-bear straight in the heart!"

The archer became as red as a beet as the rest of the Freedom Fighters cheered for him, feeling that strange warmth again when he realized that Smellerbee was by far the loudest among them.

"Tonight, Freedom Fighters, we salute our friends' bravery and tenacity, and the unwavering commitment every one of us has to this great cause. If you take anything from what I've said tonight, though, let it be this: we are so much stronger and so much more capable than what we give ourselves credit for. For Spirits' sake, I asked these two assholes to feed us for two days, and they bring back enough to keep us fed for two weeks! Every day, I see the Freedom Fighters going the extra mile to keep this place going. Every day, I am so damn proud of all of the love and support and camaraderie you all have for one another. Every day, no matter how hard things get, I know we're going forward because, together, I know in my heart that nothing can take our passion and drive away!"

Jet raised his glass, allowing his voice to carry through the canopy for all the world to hear.

"Long live the Freedom Fighters!"

The troop echoed him in unison, exchanging smiles and clinking their mugs.

"Long live the Freedom Fighters!"

* * *

_A/N: They say a good leader that acknowledges and identifies with a group's struggles is the first step of many on the path of radicalization. And, of course, highlighting the accomplishments of a hard-working individual within the group inevitably pushes the others to work harder to gain their leader's respect and acknowledgment. It's amazing how, despite how much we understand about the psychology of terrorism and radicalization, it seems to happen over and over and over again…_

_Also, Smellershot fluff because it is my lifeblood. I'd always wondered where the little scrap of red fabric on Smellerbee's forearm came from, so there you have it._

_Reviews/comments? Please? No one seems to bother with them anymore..._


	15. SUMMARY Chapters 1-10

**A/N: Hi, all! Since my updates are so few and far between, I've made a little summary of what's happened so far in this story chapter by chapter:**

**EXPOSITION: **The Earth Kingdom (near the Gaipan settlement), late summer, 99 ASC (for reference, Aang emerged from the iceberg a few months after this in fall/winter).

Jet and Sneers: 16 years old ; Pipsqueak: 18 years old ; Smellerbee and Longshot: 14 years old ; The Duke: 8 years old

**Chapter 1**: Jet, Sneers, Smellerbee, Longshot, and Pipsqueak find a baby in the remains of an Earth Kingdom settlement that has been recently pillaged by the Fire Nation. Jet is drunk and a bit of an asshole to Smellerbee.

**Chapter 2**: Smellerbee disguises herself to sneak into Gaipan to find the child a home, then returns to the base.

**Chapter 3:** A flashback to Smellerbee's past when she is taking care of her baby niece Suuna. Her older sister Ninta-i is in an arranged, abusive marriage, and Smellerbee begins to formulate a plan to have the three of them and Chang (Ninta'i's lover and Suuna's father) escape.

**Chapter 4**: Sneers, Smellerbee, Longshot, Whiplash, and Skeeter scavenge the burned Fire Nation settlement on a really hot day, taking a break by the river to cool off. Whiplash and Skeeter's banter reveal that Jet has told pretty much everyone at the hideout about the infamous 'Catgator Incident.' Flashback of the incident itself, then flash forward to present again.

**Chapter 5**: The crew returns to base; Sneers begins to go through the documents he found at the site. Kettle comes to him for salve for his burned leg; the two discuss physical and emotional scars. Sneers finds a letter in the pile of documents addressed to his uncle in Yu Dao.

**Chapter 6:** Klepfretter and Sneers converse early the next morning. Sneers finds Skillet and begins to argue with her about Kettle, claiming that she is pushing him to recover too quickly (she, on the other hand, thinks he's being too soft, which is impractical given the situation they're all in). He insults her and stomps away. Sneers switches nightwatch duty with Longshot, who runs into Jet during his shift and is asked to join he and Smellerbee on an important mission. Two days later, the three of them track down a group of travelling Fire Nation soldiers and eavesdrop to get some intel.

**Chapter 7.** The soldiers' conversation reveals that this particular convoy has been sent to defend a Fire Nation settlement (rather than to attack an Earth Kingdom one). Most of the soldiers share reservations about the war, are worried about their families back home, and think that the Freedom Fighters are malevolent spirits that protect the forest. Smellerbee has a flashback to when she was rescued by the Freedom Fighters about a year before, and Jet used her then newly realized hatred of the Fire Nation to convince her to join.

**Chapter 8**. The trio returns to base and discusses their findings with the rest of the main Freedom Fighters. They argue over how to proceed, but eventually agree to send Klepfretter into Gaipan undercover to gather more information. Jet discusses the possibility of using the Fire Nation soldiers' fears and superstitions to gain an upper hand with Smellerbee. Bee contemplates her outspoken nature in a flashback (about same time as Chapter 3), when she witnessed a brutal beating in an alleyway and was too scared to stop or report the violence.

**Chapter 9:** Smellerbee and Longshot discuss their concerns for Jet's mental health as they bathe and wash their clothes in the river. Longshot fears that he too is beginning to change because of everything he's seen and had to do since joining the Freedom Fighters about 4 years before (something Bee reassures him isn't happening). Later, Jet observes them sort of flirting with one another at dinner. The entire crew learns that the Avatar has been found in an iceberg and is travelling around the Earth Kingdom.

**Chapter 10**: Several weeks pass, and the Freedom Fighters experience renewed hope and tenacity at the news of Aang's return. Smellerbee and Longshot are sent out on gathering duty. Bee sees the burn scars on Longshot's forearms for the first time. The two are nearly killed by a platypus-bear, and Longshot accidentally nicks Bee's arm with the arrow that kills the beast. They return to dinner for toasts and a rallying speech from Jet.

Hope that helps a bit! Hopefully I'll have a new chapter up soon.


	16. 11 Intel

**Intel **

The swordswoman yawned audibly as she trudged across the rickety bridge from her isolated abode to the sheltered platform where Jet usually debriefed the Freedom Fighters on specific missions or convened with them shortly after their assigned tasks. Despite how exhausted she had been from the previous day, Smellerbee hadn't gotten much sleep: adrenaline had continued to flow through her as her heart still thrummed at a mile a minute, and the fresh cut on her arm had throbbed dully with each pulse. She had treated and cleaned the wound within minutes of returning to the base, but he had fiddled with the makeshift tourniquet more than a few times throughout the night, tying and retying the scrap of dull red fabric about her left bicep until its looser configuration had finally permitted her to snag a couple of hours of sleep early that morning.

She was _really_ glad that Longshot didn't poison his arrows.

"G'mornin," she mumbled as she joined her usual place by Jet and Longshot's sides, rubbing her eyes into focus until she could make out the people around her: Sneers looked irritated, shifting his weight from foot to foot as if he felt that his time would have been better spent elsewhere (and, by the sourness of Skillet's countenance, he'd been moping for quite some time about it). Pipsqueak—patient and agreeable as always—offered the girl a tired, yet heartfelt smile in return just as their leader crossed the threshold.

"All right guys," Jet began, squinting in the afternoon sun as he regarded his comrades. "Status reports all around. Thirty seconds each, starting at my right. Take it away, Smellerbee."

"As Jet so eloquently put it last night," she remarked, clearing her throat, "Longshot and I managed to gather enough food to hold us over for the next two weeks or so. We travelled east along the usual route, and did not see any Fire Nation soldiers or traps along the way and—_yes_, Longshot, everyone knows about the damn platypus-bear—"

"How are we on weapons right now, Bee?" Jet interjected, twirling a wheatgrass between his teeth as Pipsqueak snickered none too softly under his breath.

"As good as we can be, I suppose: I went through and polished and oiled some of the older stuff the other day, but I've still got another day or two to go before everything's in good shape. Anything you want me to prioritize?"

"Practice weapons and small knives and spears, if you can: I'm gonna look into training some of the younger kids on short-range tactics. Nothing too serious," he added, shutting down Sneers before he could even open his mouth, "They will not be accompanying us on missions anytime soon. You n' Longshot got that covered?"

Bee nodded curtly. "Everything'll be on the training platform by tomorrow morning."

"Excellent. Pipsqueak?"

The meeting carried on with little fanfare, each of the members succinctly detailing the last week's progress: the rickety floorboards on the East platform had been fixed, finishing touches had been made on a new zipline connecting a rather far watch post to a more central location, Arrow and a couple of his friends that had come along to collect the platypus-bear carcass yesterday had also hauled back some edible berries, the little garden above Skillet's hut had yielded a good crop of herbs—all in all, the preparations for winter had been proceeding nicely.

"Before we break for the day, did anyone have any other information to report?" Jet asked, twirling a stalk of wheatgrass between his teeth.

Skillet muttered an "oh!", fishing a scrap of parchment from her pocket that had been delivered by Arrow just that morning. Pipsqueak glanced over the young woman's shoulder, immediately recognizing Klepfretter's untidy, coded scrawl.

"More news from Gaipan," she announced, absentmindedly twirling a lock of hair in her fingers as she read out the translated cypher:

"'_Seventeen more Fire Nation soldiers arrived at quarter moon'_ — so two days ago—' _and reported sightings of the Avatar at Kiyoshi Island.'" _

"Kiyoshi Island?" interrupted Sneers, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "What would he be there for?"

Skillet rolled her eyes and continued. "'_Heard some local Earth Kingdom folks and people passing through town talking about going to an 'impenetrable city' _—figured that was Ba Sing Se—_in the North. Said that it was safe. No Fire Nation._'"

Jet nodded in thanks, his knee bouncing as he processed the information. "That beast he and his friends ride can travel further in a day than any of us could do on foot in a fortnight," he remarked. "But why is his path so random?"

"Longshot says that the Kiyoshi Warriors would be powerful allies," mused the swordswoman, not looking up from her hands as she picked the nails with one of her small daggers. "The Avatar could be looking into forming a resistance."

Their leader's eyes flashed briefly at her statement. "Then why'd he visit the Air Temple? I'm pretty sure that even the measly, isolated settlement in the Southern Water Tribe knows about the Airbender Genocide. Someone down there woulda told him that he wasn't going to find any help there."

"It was probably for sentimental reasons," mused Sneers, suddenly forlorn. "The Avatar is rumored to have hailed from the Southern Air Temple. _Spirits_… can you imagine being asleep for a century and then waking up to news like that?"

Jet winced as the eight year-old memory of a village—_his_ village—burning to the ground flashed in his mind. "I think in a way we _all_ can," he muttered darkly, regarding them all solemnly as his hands balled into fists.

The floor creaked as Pipsqueak leaned on the stool to give his leader a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I know it's unlikely," he began in a soft, rumbling baritone, "but if we have the chance, and Longshot is right and they're looking for recruits, then maybe we could join them."

Bee almost sliced off her pinkie: _join _the Avatar?

"Pip," Jet sighed, running a hand through his bangs, "if anything that Sneers has been telling me about the Air Nomads is true, then this kid isn't gonna be willing to do what needs to be done to defeat the Fire Nation. The Air Nomads loved peace: they could have easily killed the soldiers when they stormed the Temples; they could've bent the air straight out of the bastards' lungs, but—but they didn't. They all preferred to die over taking a life: s' a wonder they weren't wiped out sooner, actually."

Sneers huffed in indignation, but looked over Jet's insensitivity. "This kid lost his entire _race_, Jet: we have no idea what kind of state he might be in, or what he might be willing to do. Revenge is a powerful motivator."

"Well, if he were _half_ as motivated as I was—"

"I think," Skillet interrupted, suddenly standing up, "that this conversation is not going to be particularly constructive. Besides, unless we can somehow tell the Avatar we're here and can manage to install an air bison landing strip in the trees, then there's very little chance he'll end up here anyway."

More than one or two people sent her an appreciative glance when Jet conceded and began to calm down. "Fine, then: if that's it, then you're all dismissed."

He was out the door in seconds, _shuang gou_ rattling against his armored thighs as he grabbed a zipline to his hut. Skillet sighed, muttering something that definitely included the word "dramatic" as she pushed in the stool and smoothed her skirts.

No one said anything as they filed out.

* * *

**A/N: Because my updates are so sporadic and re-reading can be time-consuming, I have included a chapter-by-chapter summary (see #15 in the drop-down chapter menu). **

**Thanks for reading!**


	17. 12 Stowaway

**Names**

* * *

Bee was met with a thick blanket of cobwebs when she finally managed to wrench open the small cabinet hidden underneath a crate of blasting jelly containers. She grimaced, wrenching the drawer free from the pile as she attempted to exit the shed, swearing colorfully as she stumbled over a pile of fallen spears on her way out.

"—can't believe Jet insists on keeping all of this stu—YEECH!"

The box dropped with a resounding crash as the girl realized that a particularly large _something_ had crawled up her sleeve, and was now doing its best to sneak into the sweaty crook of her elbow. Smellerbee hated—_hated_—all manner of crawling things that managed to infest the various crannies of the treetop hideout, but _ugh_, when they actually _touched_ her—

The critter—a fat silverfish—flew out after a few quick shakes of the sleeve and scuttled back to the shadows. Bee shuddered in revulsion, nudging the box outside and giving it a few light kicks to encourage any of its other residents to leave.

A deep, booming laugh emanated from somewhere a few footsteps to her right, and she started: Pipsqueak had undoubtedly seen the whole thing, and would probably give her grief about it for weeks: Smellerbee, fearless and brash, afraid of—_bugs_? She'd never hear the end of it.

"Shut up," she muttered, lightly punching the behemoth's shoulder as he lumbered beside her. "Damn thing went straight up my arm—"

"It's okay, Bee, I won't tell anyone," he reassured, still chuckling to himself. "I came over because I thought I heard someone in the shed. Did you need help getting some stuff up to the practice platform?"

She blinked, glancing back at the storage area. Well, as long as there was some muscle here…

"Actually, that would be great—could you grab a couple of those bamboo poles towards the back? I think Jet wants to go over some _bo_ techniques and spearwork, too."

Pip nodded and grinned, ducking his head to fit through the shed's threshold. "And Bee?"

She kicked the box on the floor again. "Hmm?"

He glanced out of the shed, motioning towards the drawer. "They'll leave faster if you put that out in the sun."

Cackling, he disappeared back into the shed before she could sock him in the shoulder again.

* * *

The box of wooden practice knives—whittled by both herself and Sneers late last winter at Jet's request—was graciously free of termites and other vermin as she inspected each one, sanding away splinters and checking for cracks. Made from heavy, unbalanced hardwood, the blades felt awkward and weighty in her hand: these were nothing like the razor-sharp steel khukri she kept in the sheath against her back, or the deadly _shuang gou_ Jet toted about on his hips, but they would have to do.

Bee snorted as she turned around the 'blade' currently in her grasp: Sneers had carefully carved his name into the flat end, as if to distinguish his prudent hand from Smellerbee's less subtle ones. The marks were so shallow and faint that she wondered why he had even bothered to mark the weapon at all: with a few hours of wear and use, it would just fade anyway.

She shrugged, begrudgingly accepting her ally's handiwork, and tossed the blade into the growing pile of inspected items.

No sooner had the blade clattered against its neighbors when a muffled, high-pitched shriek met the girl's ears, followed by one of Pipsqueak's more colorful swears. She flinched, fumbling for the dagger strapped to her ankle before she followed the sound, creeping silently across the bridge towards its source. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jet stumbling out of his hut, muttering to himself as he too fished out a suitable short-range weapon: he caught her gaze, nodding, and together they advanced.

It became evident as they drew closer to the supply shack that their approach had been rather overzealous: muffled whimpers and the soft rumble of Pipsqueak's voice reached their ears, and the perplexed pair exchanged a glance.

"Pip?" Jet intoned warily, peering into the shed. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, we're fine, just approach slowly." Smellerbee squinted: _we_? "You can put away your weapons."

They gathered about the threshold and saw the behemoth sitting cross-legged, his vest curled into a pile in his lap. A mop of unruly brown hair and wide, terrified eyes peeked out from the mass, surveying the other Freedom Fighters as they entered.

"I found him in the back when I was getting some items for Bee out of the shed," Pipsqueak explained. "We gave each other quite a scare!"

The bundle gave a tiny, nervous nod as the massive young man chuckled, but his gaze quickly became stern once more. "The kid's skin and bones, Jet: we need to get Sneers to take a look at him after we get him down to Skillet for a meal."

The child brightened at that, but still regarded Jet and Bee warily. Sensing his discomfort, the girl immediately sheathed her dagger and wiped the stripes from her cheeks, kneeling low to regard him.

"It's okay, we won't hurt you," she assured, the characteristic rasp of her voice somewhat less pronounced than usual. "My name's Smellerbee, and these two are Pipsqueak and Jet. I know you're probably really scared and tired and hungry right now, so we're gonna do the best we can to get you in better shape, okay?"

The boy nodded, curling into Pipsqueak's chest again.

"I'll go get Skillet started on that meal," Jet added, his voice oozing with charisma. "Sit tight, okay?"

He was out the door before Bee could speak again. "I know you're hungry, but if you don't want to get sick then you're gonna have to eat slowly. Can you do that?"

Nod.

The girl was cross-legged now, regarding their unexpected guest with a concerned gaze. "Okay, good: now, are you hurt anywhere?"

The boy looked at her, and then at his hands: he sported some nasty rope burns and a few splinters, but otherwise looked to be relatively unscathed.

"If you want, I can get Sneers to look at that for you. He's kind of like a healer."

He cleared his throat—a tiny sound—and his lip quivered. "Will—will it hurt?"

She hesitated a bit, but relented when she met his eyes: he already knew the answer, and—whether or not he knew it—Bee understood this as a gesture to calibrate her trust.

"It might a little, but Sneers is really good. You'll feel a lot better once we get those splinters out and get your hands wrapped up. After you eat and get that done, we can set up a bed for you in Pipsqueak's room."

The boy seemed to contemplate this for a moment, but consented with another nod.

"Thank you, Miss Smellerbee," he mumbled, offering her the smallest of smiles.

She chuckled, tilting her head to the side. Manners weren't something she'd encountered that much during her time in the trees, but they were appreciated nonetheless.

"You can call me Bee."

* * *

Less than two hours later, the gang had managed to get their unexpected guest fed, clothed, and treated before bed. Despite how terrified he'd been initially, the boy had mellowed out significantly when he'd realized that none of the Freedom Fighters meant him any harm. Throughout the entire ordeal Pipsqueak had never left his side and, in fact, didn't offer more than a few words of conversation to anyone before he was sure the kid was fast asleep. No sooner had the giant of a young man left his room that Bee trailed behind him, brimming with questions.

Pipsqueak smiled wearily at her, clapping the girl on the shoulder with a massive hand as he exhaled slowly.

"You're starting to develop a habit of finding kids in weird places," she quipped, following her friend to the bridge that led to the dining platform.

"If I remember correctly it was you and Longshot that found the baby in the burnt-down village a few weeks ago."

"Eh, you were there: it's close enough," Bee replied, yawning loudly into a closed fist. "You're good with him, though."

He raised an eyebrow, surprised by her comment. "You weren't too bad yourself, Bee: I don't think I've ever heard you be so nice."

She mocked offense, scoffing as she pushed the headband further up her forehead, but sobered as she thought about it for the moment.

"Eh, he shouldn't get used to it: once he's more comfortable here, I won't baby him so much. Life's tough up here, anyway: we may as well prepare him for that."

Pipsqueak seemed to consider that a moment as he stared out at the canopy, the first signs of stars flickering between the leaves.

They rounded the corner and beheld the dining platform. It was teeming with activity: chopsticks clicked and broth was slurped, and a round of raucous laughter emanated from the line to the soup pot. Some of the younger kids had draped a blanket over one of the smaller tables, creating shadow puppets in their makeshift fort with their hands and eating utensils. Others play-dueled with bamboo sticks and soup spoons, exchanging playful banter as they ducked and wove around one another's blows.

From the head table, Longshot and Jet beckoned them over, faces warm and inviting as Bee and Pipsqueak moved to join them.

"Yeah, it's tough," Pip mused, smiling to himself, "but at the end of the day we can sit back and enjoy all that we've done to make this place what it is."

As she settled at her usual place beside Longshot and reached for a handful of roasted lychee nuts from their communal bowl, Smellerbee found that she couldn't agree more.

* * *

Over the next few days, the boy Pipsqueak had found in the shed became more and more comfortable around the other Freedom Fighters. Thanks to Skillet, he was also beginning to assume the weight and color of a child his age: his cheeks, once hollow and pallid, now glowed with renewed warmth, and his ribs did not protrude quite as prominently from his wiry frame.

Despite his newfound confidence at the hideout, however, the boy had not said much of how he had ended up in the outskirts of Gaipan, much less in a weapon supply shed in a secret base more than a hundred feet off the forest floor. The details of his life reflected a similar void of unknowns: a face remembered here, a name remembered there, but nothing coherent enough to string together. It had been just as well: within the week he had managed to learn the name of every person in the hideout, and Jet and Smellerbee had set him up with a permanent bed in a tent with Arrow, Kettle, and Whiplash.

On the morning of the sixth or seventh day since the boy's arrival, they were all sitting down for breakfast. With all of Pipsqueak's bulk, the fresh berries were just out of her reach, and if she could just ask the kid to pass them over—

At that point Smellerbee realized that they had forgotten something very important.

She turned to Longshot across the table, almost laughing as his incredulous gaze as the rice-laden chopsticks halted halfway to his mouth.

"Did the new kid ever tell us his name?" she hissed, glancing back at the boy in question.

The archer seemed to contemplate that a moment before his eyebrows scrunched together: surely he'd mentioned it before, with how he'd been exploring the hideout and meeting its inhabitants for the last week. Surely, he'd introduced himself by name to someone, or someone had at least _asked_: after all, how could they have _possibly _forgotten that?

"Shit— I feel bad: maybe Pipsqueak knows?"

"What might I know?"

The gentle giant's rumbling baritone straightened Smellerbee's spine as he turned to face her, a soup spoon seeming comically small in his massive hand.

The girl rubbed her neck, glancing back to Longshot. He raised an eyebrow: it was just like her to divert some of the embarrassment of the situation on him (even if he, too, felt a tad sheepish).

She stuck her tongue out at him, to which he rolled his eyes and continued to eat, the vestiges of a smile curling his lip.

"Did the kid ever mention what his name was?"

Pipsqueak hesitated, but shook his head. "When I found him and introduced myself, he never gave one. My guess is that it's either really embarrassing…"

"…or it's too painful to hear," she finished, nodding in comprehension. Nobody at the hideout went by the name they'd had in their old lives, before the Freedom Fighters: for most of them, the last people to have called them by those names were either long gone or better off forgotten.

"I've been throwing out ideas all week, though," reassured the giant, listing the options on his fingers: "Wingnut, Tor, Little Man…"

"_Little Man?"_ Bee squeaked, incredulous. "And what do you suppose will happen when he's your age: will he be upgraded to 'Big Man,' or just 'Man'?"

"It was just an _idea_," he muttered, feigning offense. "Besides, it's more than you and your hunting buddy over here have come up with."

She glanced back at Longshot: he'd been listening politely the whole time, and tilted his head when she gave him a questioning glance. When he nodded his assent, Bee made a big deal of sighing and propping her elbows up on the table.

"Must 'Shot and I do _everything_ around here, Pip?" she drawled hyperbolically, offering him a smirk as she and Longshot began to exchange whispers and glances.

"Any ideas?" she muttered, chuckling at the strangeness of the situation. They both stole a glimpse of the boy in question, who was quietly and politely eating his meal and glancing up to Pipsqueak every few moments. As he smiled a small grin poked out from between his lips. Smellerbee felt her heart clench when she saw that he'd lost one of his front teeth, and that the adult tooth beneath it had just begun to emerge. Between that and his doughy face, the girl suspected that he couldn't have been older than eight or nine.

Bee's thoughts were interrupted when Longshot nodded to something metallic in the child's lap, squinting to decipher what it was. The girl recognized the blunted pike tip and swirling designs along the base as something they'd salvaged from the charred village a few weeks earlier: if she wasn't mistaken, it had been among the scrap metal that Longshot himself had scraped together from the remains of the forge.

"It's that little helmet you found," she remarked, "Remember, the one you put all of the nails in?"

The archer remembered: he'd nearly impaled his foot on the spike protruding from its top when he'd tripped over some metal goods covered in ash. He'd remembered thinking it was some sort of goblet or piece of body armor, but the charred remains of a cloth strap attached to the base confirmed that it might have once been a child's helmet: a plaything worn whilst defending a sand castle fortress or battling another child in a dragon mask. The dings and scratches had spoken of how well loved it had been; how cherished: how much a father or mother must have cared for their child to have had the object specially commissioned for a tiny, imaginative head.

He hadn't been able to stomach the thought of just leaving it there.

Longshot was drawn out of his thoughts when Smellerbee barked with laughter: he glanced around to see that the boy had donned the helmet, the rim so wide as to just slide past his eyebrows. He grabbed the walking stick he'd procured that morning and, with a flourish, began his trip to the soup pot for seconds.

"Quite princely, isn't he?" she chuckled, watching as he struggled to fit all of the articles in his tiny hands. "He looks even _more_ regal when he's on Pip's shoulders, if you can believe it."

His pointed glance to the helmet got her thinking. "We could go for something princely, then; something—something regal…a, a king, or a lord, or…"

Then, it hit them both.

"Hey, Pipsqueak, what about Duke?" Bee posited, gently nudging her colleague with a bony elbow.

Just then, the boy returned with a bowl of soup, tilting the helmet out of his eyes. "Who's Duke? I don't think I've met them yet."

The giant of a man laughed, motioning for him to sit beside him. "Bee n' Longshot here have been brainstorming a name for you. What do you say: want to be Duke?"

A sparkle ignited in his mahogany brown eyes, and a positively contagious smile stretched wide across his freckled cheeks.

"Can I be The Duke?" he asked, clasping his hands together excitedly.

"I don't see why not," said Smellerbee, beaming back at him. She glanced around, searching for Jet: he would want to know immediately, and tell the rest of the Freedom Fighters while they were all together for breakfast. A cursory search, however, indicated that their leader was probably still asleep.

"Ah, screw it," she muttered, clearing the dishes in front of her before she faced their newly named member once more. "Hey, The Duke, c'mere."

In seconds she had managed to hoist the boy on her shoulders and, with Pipsqueak's help, had stepped onto the table. Sneers huffed in indignation as her foot knocked over an urn full of berries, and The Duke laughed as more and more curious glances accumulated around them."

Bee cleared her throat, scanning the crowd before her.

"FREEDOM FIGHTERS!"

Dozens of conversations immediately halted as everyone devoted their attention to her heightened figure.

"I'm sure by now that you've all met this here lad on my shoulders, and I trust that you've all welcomed him as kindly and respectfully as he has undoubtedly greeted you."

Nods and murmurs.

"Good, good. Now, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing him to all of you by name: a name worthy of his countenance"—at this she gave a flamboyant flourish, causing a few chuckles—"and _esteem_. I give you all…THE DUKE!"

Raucous cheers erupted from the tables: anyone who had previously still been in the throes of fatigue was now fully awake, adding to the cacophony of voices and bangs and clangs for their newest recruit, who blushed sheepishly as Bee paraded him up and down the table. Even Sneers managed a smile, and Longshot thought he'd seen the glint of a tear in Pipsqueak's eye.

* * *

Not too far away, Jet rubbed his eyes and poked his head outside his tent. Though his head still throbbed from the mead he'd nursed the night before, he could distinctly make out the shape of a figure traipsing along the surface of the main dining table, a smaller figure perched on their shoulders. The others' cries confirmed a celebration: either it was someone's birthday, or the new recruit had just been Named.

The leader hastily pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt he'd actually managed to clean in the last week, making his way across the bridge that connected his platform with the one above the dining hall. At a closer glance, he was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Smellerbee toting their greenest member about, introducing him to the rest of the Freedom Fighters as The Duke. Jet smiled: the name suited the boy well, and he suspected that this gesture of camaraderie would further secure the child's allegiance to their cause. If any of his previous interactions with the boy indicated something, it was that he was smart; resourceful: after all, he'd had to to find his way into their secret hideout undetected. Yes: he'd be useful later.

"Ah, Bee," he chuckled under his breath, shaking his head ruefully. "I can always count on you to get the quiet ones."

* * *

**A/N**: I'm back! For now, anyway: I _finally_ finished college, and am now on my way to starting a Master's degree in teaching! The program starts out part-time, so with any luck, I can get the next few chapters hammered out before things get too crazy again. I've been planning them for a few weeks, now, and am really excited to get everything on paper! After I cover the canon stuff, I can finally move on to Book 2 and start up some Jetko action (since that's probably why you're here, lol). I have a lot in store for the ferry scenes (spoiler alert: it's gonna get gay) and all the shenanigans Bee and Shot will get into in Ba Sing Se while they're looking for Jet *wink wink*

Anyways, I'm planning on looking into Jet's more manipulative side in the next few chapters, just because that ends up being so important for the canon interactions with the Gaang in the Book 1 episode. I'll also be throwing in some entropy, just to keep things interesting: we'll see what the meddling of a spirit or two will do to shake up the relative calm of the current arc.

Also, just as a reminder for FFnet users, there are **illustrations** for this fic on the AO3 (Archive of our Own) posting of this story. Check 'em out!

As always, a review or comment is _really, really_ appreciated!


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